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Moscow Jehovah’s Witnesses case before European court

Posted: Saturday September 18, 2004 8:02 PM EST

By Mir Religii

European Court of Human Rights Reviews Appeal of Russian Jehovists

A review was scheduled for 9 September in the European Court for Human Rights of the appeal from the Moscow congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in connection with the decision of the Golovin District Court of Moscow of 26 March 2004 for its liquidation , which was left in force by the Moscow City Court of Appeals, “Blagovest-info” reports. Information about the results of the court session in Strasbourg has not yet reached Moscow Jehovists.

According to its superintendent, at the end of August of this year an appeal addressed to Vladimir V. Putin was sent to the presidential administration of RF, which was signed by “more than 315,000 citizens of Russia expressing profound concern with regard to the banning of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow.” Copies of the appeal were sent to Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov and Supreme Court President Viacheslav Lebedev. The signatories include 133,000 members of the Jehovist organization, and the others were sympathizers (relatives and acquaintances of believers).

The signatures were collected in less than two months, from 10 May to 27 June, and the signed sheets constitute 76 volumes. As this same source reported, the appeal of the Jehovists in the Strasbourg court was discussed on 3 September at a meeting of one of twelve members of the Brooklyn leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Guy Pearce (USA), with active members of the Moscow congregation of this denomination, in which 841 persons participated, including heads of congregations, their wives, and other ministers. At this meeting Guy Pearce stated that after he returns to New York he will inform the leadership of the denomination about the situation that has developed for their Moscow fellow believers. He was in Moscow in the course of a trip to St. Petersburg for business of the Jehovist organization.

Previously, on 26 March, the president of the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, Vasily Kalin, stated in a declaration made “in the name of more than 133,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, including 11,000 Witnesses in Moscow” that the decision of the Golovin District Court of the Northern Administrative district of the capital for liquidation of the Moscow congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses is considered “non-objective, baseless, and illegal.” The official status of the Russia-wide administrative center of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is registered with the Ministry of Justice of Russia, as well as the status of 400 local congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which are registered throughout the country, remain unchanged, he is confident. “The unfortunate decision of the Golovin court could lead to the set-back of religious freedom in Russia by 500 years. We have no doubt that competent representatives of authority will take measuresto defend the constitutional rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow,” Kalin thinks.

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