The Supreme Court upheld the decision to liquidate the legal entity of Jehovah's Witnesses in Birobidzhan

On February 9, 2017, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation considered an appeal against the liquidation of a local religious organization (LRO) of Jehovah's Witnesses in Birobidzhan. The believers tried to prove to the court that the grounds for liquidation were grossly falsified. Unfortunately, the court ignored their arguments.

How was the evidence against the Birobidzhan LRO falsified?

On February 11, 2015, three police officers, as well as an FSB officer, interrupted a worship service of Jehovah's Witnesses in a rented room. During the search, they "found" someone neatly camouflaged publications included in the FSEM. (Witnesses interviewed later testified that a stranger had entered the room before the service began.) On this basis, the district court fined the chairman of the LRO 4,000 rubles. The prosecutor issued a warning to the LRO about the inadmissibility of repeated "violation" of the law within 12 months.

On October 18, 2015 , believers discovered that someone had again planted banned books in the premises they rented for worship. They hurried to dispose of these items, and a few minutes later, apparently not by chance, the same police officers entered the room to search, but, of course, they could not find anything forbidden.

On January 21, 2016, again, the same law enforcement officers, together with others, interrupted the worship service and announced a search for "extremist materials." Clustered in a corner of the room, they said they had "found" a stack of banned publications. However, due to the inconsistency of their actions, it turned out that that corner had already been examined a few minutes earlier by other police officers, who did not find anything forbidden there. Moreover, one of the believers saw the same bundle of literature in the hands of law enforcement officers. The believers announced another forgery. However, the district court did not listen to the arguments of the believers and again imposed a fine of 3,000 rubles on the chairman of the LRO.

All appeals of believers to the prosecutor's office and the Investigative Committee on the facts of these plantings were also completely ignored.

On October 3, 2016, it was on the basis of these fabricated "facts" allegedly confirming "extremist activity" that the Court of the Jewish Autonomous Region, at the suit of the Department of Justice for the Jewish Autonomous Region, decided to liquidate the LRO and recognize it as "extremist".

This decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation does not mean a ban on the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in Birobidzhan. Only a specific legal entity was liquidated, which included a little more than 10 Birobidzhan residents. The profession of faith by Jehovah's Witnesses is still legal throughout the Russian Federation thanks to Article 28 of the Russian Constitution, which has not undergone any changes. (Earlier, in a similar case of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the court, having sorted it out, issued a decision restoring justice for the Tyumen LRO of Jehovah's Witnesses.)