Print this pageFor Immediate Release
August 5, 2010
(Russian)
Appeal filed with ECHR regarding allegations of extremism
Jehovah’s Witnesses submit the Gorno-Altaysk case
STRASBOURG—Having exhausted all domestic options within Russia and seeing that the existing legislation has only opened the way to increased intolerance, discrimination, and acts of violence, Jehovah’s Witnesses are forced to pursue justice elsewhere.
On July 23, 2010, the Local Religious Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses of Gorno-Altaysk submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the judgment of the Supreme Court of the Altay Republic that declared 18 of their Christian publications “extremist.”
It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court of the republic allowed only the local organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Gorno-Altaysk to defend issues of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines against accusations of “extremism.” The court refused to allow the representatives of the author and publisher to participate in the case, ruling that their rights were not affected. Less than three months later, the Federal Service for Oversight of Communications, Information Technologies, and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) individually listed the magazines that had been declared “extremist” in the judgment as a basis for revoking the permit to distribute these journals throughout Russia.
For 160,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses active in Russia, which is almost three times the population of Gorno-Altaysk, the judgment rendered has led to a flood of oppression. Also affected are some nine hundred thousand individuals in Russia who regularly choose to read The Watchtower and Awake! each month. Those individuals will no longer be able to read these Bible-based journals that have enriched their lives by providing spiritual guidance for them and their families.
Contacts:
In Belgium: European Association of Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses,
tel. +32 2 782 0015
In Russia: Viktor Zhenkov, tel. +7 812 702 2691
In USA: J. R. Brown, tel. +1 718 560 5600