Grenade triggered in Abkhazia, at liturgical building of Jehovah's Witnesses

In the city of Gagra, Abkhazia, in the yard, where members of the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses come for their prayer meetings, a grenade went up. There were no casualties, but the building was damaged. Believers say about recent increased pressure on them.

The addiition by editorial board, April 23. The explosion near the Kingdom Hall had place in Gudauta. The clarification is made today by the press-service of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

The explosion took place on March 23 at 11:50 p.m., after a grenade was thrown into the window of the Hall of the Kingdom (the name given by Jehovah's Witnesses to the building where they hold their joint worship of God, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"), Grigory Martynov, the spokesman of the Administrative Centre of Jehovah's Witnesses told today the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Only thanks to the metal mesh on the window, the grenade bounced off and fell onto a concrete path, where it blew up," said Martynov.

According to his story, the on duty employee was at that moment in the building; and he called the militia – a crew of ten militiamen came to the venue.

According to believers, this was not the first attack on the liturgical building of Jehovah's Witnesses in Gagra. Earlier armed men in masks "had repeated tried to get into the Hall at night."

"This and last year, employees of the State Security Service and other law enforcement bodies of the Republic of Abkhazia repeatedly attempted to prevent the joint religious meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses," said Grigory Martynov.

At the same time, he said, law enforcers used to break into the liturgical building, copy individual data of the believers and confiscate literature.

"Although we don't run statistics of such cases, we can say that the attention of power agents has recently grown closer; however, it is not quite clear why," said Grigory Martynov.

According to his story, believers did not challenge the actions of law enforcers, since the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses is not registered in Abkhazia.

Law enforcement bodies have not commented the believers' statements yet.