For Immediate Release
Siberian exile remembered this week Fifty years ago, in April 1951, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses were exiled from western territories of the former USSR to the Irkutsk and Tomsk Regions. This action was the climax of persecution that the totalitarian regime used against the religious organization. Jehovah's Witnesses were not simply exiled. In hopes of changing their convictions, the authorities imprisoned them, sent them to specialized camps and subjected them to torture. Those who remained behind in freedom were under the strictest control. Mass propaganda was used to make the believers objects of hatred and subject to daily attacks from those around them. The totalitarian regime wanted to stifle their spirit of freedom by using terror and violence. Although the forms of persecution changed, it continued for several decades. The 1990's brought Jehovah's Witnesses and other victims of the totalitarian regime freedom of worship and full legal exoneration. Unfortunately, religious intolerance in its new forms, remains a disgraceful reality in the territory of the former USSR. Testifying to that fact is the five-year prosecution of the Moscow association of Jehovah's Witnesses instigated by the Prosecutor's Office of the North Administrative District. In order to honor the memory of the innocent victims and to recall the important lessons of recent history, a series of memorial meetings will be held in Moscow, Irkutsk and Saint Petersburg in April of 2001. Similar events will also be held in Ukraine and Estonia in April. Eyewitnesses and participants in these historical events, along with historians, religious scholars and leading human rights activists in Russia, will take part in these memorial meetings. The public's attention will be drawn to historical documents known only to a small circle of people. A new film entitled Faithful Under Trials—Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union will be premiered. The first of these meetings will be held on April 5 in Moscow—a round table with the participation of representatives of community, society "Memorial," Moscow Helsinki Group and the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. The round table will begin at 12 p.m. in the Mramorny Hall of the House of Journalists. Russia contact:
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