Krasnodar Territory: court considers whether book of Jehovah's Witnesses is extremist

On November 22, the Uspenskiy District Court of the Krasnodar Territory began considering the lawsuit lodged by the district public prosecutor on recognition of the religious book of Jehovah's Witnesses "We Fundamentally Evidence Lord's Kingdom".

The book had already been studied by experts from the Kemerovo State University. "In 2010, with respect to this publication Kemerovo experts concluded that it 'does not contain any comparisons or parallels, aimed to create a negative and repulsive image of any other religion, as well as of the persons professing other religions'," quotes the official website "Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia".

However, in his lawsuit the public prosecutor of the Uspenskiy District of the Krasnodar Territory relies on the study carried out by specialists of the Krasnodar forensic laboratory Alla Bogomaz and Ekaterina Karlova, who believed that a number of passages from the book have "attributes of incitement of hatred and enmity."

According to the above specialists, whose conclusion is presented on the website of the "Sova" Information-Analytical Centre, the above book has "attributes of mild hate speech", which are found in "attribution of hostility to Christian clergy, accusing them of incitement against Jehovah's Witnesses" and at the same time "in enumeration of positive features" of Witnesses themselves: "they are conflict free and loyal to provocations from traditional religious confessions."