In June 2020, a gas welder from Pskov, Gennady Shpakovsky, was sentenced to 6.5 years in a general penal colony. A practicing Jehovah’s Witness, Shpakovsky was convicted simply for expressing his religious beliefs. After Russia moved to criminalise its Jehovah’s Witness community through its counter-extremism laws, Shpakovsky is now the eleventh Jehovah’s Witness who has received a prison sentence in the country – and the verdict against him has turned out to be the severest penalty in Russia so far.
As OVD-Info reports, criminal cases launched against members of the religious group often follow the same pattern. Shpakovsky, who is 61, was found guilty of “organising the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses community” in Pskov and “financing the organisation”. His arrest and investigation was carried out by FSB officers.
In court, the prosecution used recordings of Shpakovsky praying as evidence against him.
The investigation claimed that, together with other members of the religious group, Shpakovsky organised and attended prayers – this was interpreted as “organising the activities of an extremist organisation”.
Moreover, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, the popular Jehovah’s Witnesses Bible which has been declared an “extremist” text in Russia, was confiscated from Shpakovsky.
During one of the court hearings in Pskov, the judge asked Shpakovsky why he had not destroyed the copy of the book. During another, the judge stated that the beliefes of Jehovah’s Witnesses were unacceptable in Russian society and that members of this community should leave for where this religion is more needed.
The SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which monitors Russia’s anti-extremist legislation, criticised the declaration of the Jehovah’s Witnesses translation as “extremist”. They stated that this action was unlawful, constituted religious discrimination and was committed in violation of the law.
The SOVA Center also criticised the investigation’s forensic analysis of the Bible translation: “The main goal of the experts is to answer the prosecution’s questions affirmatively.” For example, experts from the Ministry of Internal Affairs claimed that the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures justified the need to “overthrow the constitutional order”, as in their version Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the current state of affairs in the world is depraved, the coming end of the world, Jesus’ victory over the Devil who conquered the world, destroyed all rulers, “evil people and demons”, Jesus’ accession and the beginning of the new world order.
Experts from Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs used the same arguments when answering the question of whether this version of the Bible contains calls for the violation of Russia’s territorial integrity.
How Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in Russia
“An organised campaign against Jehovah’s Witnesses started in 2009,” says Alexander Verkhovsky, director of SOVA Center. “Simultaneously, mass inspections were initiated by public prosecutors across the country. Moreover, these checks ranged from the fire safety inspection [in the premises of regional Jehovah’s Witness organisations] to the prosecutor’s office itself. It was obvious that the General Prosecutor’s Office initiated this. Why did this happen? It’s still unclear. This is when the first organisation was banned in Taganrog and the first criminal case was launched. And this has been going on since 2009, to a varying extent.”
This is also when the ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature and brochures went into effect. A number of expert reports and court rulings banned these texts on the basis that they allegedly assert “religious superiority”. According to Verhovsky, these arguments were based on the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature included phrases like: “They will be saved, others won’t. Their religion is right, the religion of other people is wrong.”
Verkhovsky adds that the wording about the assertion of religious superiority – the basis for banning Jehovah’s Witnesses literature – looks strange, given that almost all religions state that they are true and the others are false, or at least worse. Russia’s extremism legislation itself is aimed at claims of superiority or inferiority of people on the grounds of nationality, language, race or religion.
Next, Russian security forces banned local Jehovah’s Witnesses organisations in different regions of the country purely on the basis that they are using literature which is officially recognised as extremist. According to Verkhovsky, the very fact that this literature is used is interpreted as extremist activity. In cases where this “extremist” literature has not been found during apartment searches, it has been planted.
In April 2017, Russia’s Supreme Court declared the Administrative Centre of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia an “extremist organisation”. In August that year, 395 regional religious organisations in Russia were listed as “extremist” and banned. This was a starting point of a new campaign targeting Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, which was followed by mass apartment searches and arrests across the country.
“The ban on 20 April 2017 was generally passed on rather formal grounds,” Verkhovsky says. “The court decision says that some of the organisations that were part of this Administrative Center were already banned. And, according to the court, the Administrative Center did not draw any conclusions from this. They used prohibited literature: ‘There are so many cases when they used prohibited literature.’ Thus, the Administrative Center, as a centralised organization, allegedly continued to engage in extremist activities, despite the actions it had already taken.”
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OVD-Info | Radio Free (2020-09-10T00:00:00+00:00) Secret witnesses, wiretaps and banned literature: how Russian law enforcement prosecutes Jehovah’s Witnesses. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/09/10/secret-witnesses-wiretaps-and-banned-literature-how-russian-law-enforcement-prosecutes-jehovahs-witnesses/
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