[{"body":"Strigunenko presents Reshetnikov with a resolution dated 10/20/2022, and Sarychev and Kolotinsky with a resolution dated 10/21/2022 on bringing each of them as a defendant in committing a crime under Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.\nThe decision to involve Sarychev states that the believer \"occupied a dominant (leading) position, acting as a controller of the information space, discussed a religious topic, gave the floor to speakers, invited other persons to participate in the discussion, comment, answer questions.\"\nThe document also says that at religious meetings, believers read out \"extremist materials, namely the text\" Holy Scripture. New World Translation.'\" According to the investigator, reading the Bible could lead to such consequences as violent change of the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, violation of the integrity of the Russian Federation, incitement of religious hatred and justification of genocide and mass repression of persons who are not Jehovah's Witnesses.\n","caseTitle":"The Case of Reshetnikov and Others in Barnaul","date":"2022-10-20T00:00:00Z","permalink":"/en/cases/barnaul2/index.html#20221020","regions":["altaisky"],"tags":["new-case","translations"],"type":"timeline"},{"body":"On March 31, 2021, the Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg declared as “extremist” and banned the distribution in Russia of the religious mobile application JW Library, a library which contains biblical texts, audio and video materials. The court made this decision without even examining the application.\nIn October 2020, the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office demanded that the application be banned, citing the fact that earlier Russian courts had unjustifiably added some publications of Jehovah's Witnesses to the Federal List of Extremist Materials. Prior to this, the overwhelming majority of state expert institutions, including the Federal Center for Forensic Expertise under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, consistently and unequivocally concluded that there were no signs of extremism in such publications. The literature of Jehovah's Witnesses is freely and legally distributed in approximately 240 countries and territories.\nAs follows from the reports of human rights defenders and international structures, the ban on literature in Russia became possible largely due to the half-baked anti-extremist legislation, as well as the bias of individual experts and judges, which became the basis for an arbitrary interpretation of the concept of extremism. Back in 2015, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended that the Russian state “revise the Federal Law 'On Countering Extremist Activities' in order to ... establish clear and specific criteria by which certain materials can be classified as extremist. All necessary measures should be taken to prevent the arbitrary application of this law and the Federal List of Extremist Materials should be revised.\"\nAn amendment was made to the law on extremism, according to which “the Bible, Koran, Tanakh and Gandzhur, their content and quotations from them cannot be recognized as extremist materials” (Article 3.1). In spite of this, the court banned the Bible published by Jehovah's Witnesses - “Holy Scripture. New World Translation ”. The liquidation of legal organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, the subsequent beatings, arrests and sentences are the result of the ban on literature.\nAccording to a lawyer familiar with the circumstances of the case, the decision to ban JW Library was made with gross violations of the law: “The application was not even examined in court. This in itself is nonsense when deciding whether to recognize information material as extremist. In addition, the court, without any substantiation, rejected numerous requests to obtain evidence and send requests to state bodies. \"\nThe decision is subject to immediate execution, but an appeal will be made.\nThe JW Library app was developed by Jehovah's Witnesses in 2013. The program includes content in 98 languages and supports Android and iOS. Only the Android version of the application was downloaded by over 10 million users, who collectively rated it 4.8 points out of 5.\nJW Library allows to download and read the Bible in various translations, including those published by non-Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, the Synodal Translation, which are widespread in Russia, the translations of Archimandrite Macarius, Archpriest Pavsky, and others. Various Bible commentaries and reference books, Bible study aids, videos, films and cartoons for children, Christian songs and music are also available.\n“Not all publications that are available for download are strictly religious,” says Yaroslav Sivulskiy of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses. “They cover topics such as nature, science, history, morality, health, family life, etc. Here are just a few examples. articles: \"Alcohol: Soberly Assess the Consequences\", \"Don't Smoke Your Life\", \"May Your Family Be Happy\", \"Teenage Depression. Reasons and solutions”, “How to find a way to reconciliation”. Banning the JW Library application for the fact that someone can download something prohibited in Russia is like closing the library, assuming that there is a banned book in its archives.\"\nUpdate. On September 27, 2021, a panel of judges at the St. Petersburg City Court, chaired by Natalia Karsakova, upheld a lower court's decision to ban the JW Library app in the Russian Federation.\nThe lawsuit was filed by Sergey Zhukovsky, deputy prosecutor of St. Petersburg. Among the interested parties are the Ministry of Justice and Roskomnadzor. Russian representative offices of Apple and Google were also involved in the process.\nJW Library is one of the top 100 apps in the \"Books \u0026 Guides\" category for iOS and Android by the number of downloads. Every day it is opened by 8 million people in more than 200 countries. According to international certification agencies, this program is suitable for users of all ages, as it contains no inappropriate materials.\n","category":"literature","date":"2021-04-01T20:50:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/1/image_hu_cb02726a53d3e099.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/1/image_hu_a5c455c38451cf14.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/1/image_hu_8ff140cd112c7f3b.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/1/image_hu_6e61019f6ccebd4f.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/1.html","regions":["stpetersburg"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["Bible-ban","translations","app-ban","fsem"],"title":"A St. Petersburg court banned a popular JW Library mobile application","type":"news"},{"body":"The details of what happened in Achinsk on November 14, 2019 have been clarified. In total, searches were conducted in at least 7 apartments of believers, and 8 people were interrogated. Law enforcement officers seized various editions of the Holy Scriptures from several believers that were not included in the list of extremist literature.\nMost of the books were seized from 62-year-old Viktor Sagin: the Bible in the Orthodox Synodal translation, two Bibles of the Orthodox Archimandrite Macarius and two editions of the New Testament. The Bible of Archimandrite Macarius, the Bible in Modern Translation and the Bible Symphony, as well as a smartphone and tablet were seized from 52-year-old Alexander Borkunov.\nIt is also known about searches and inspections of the premises of Yuri Sotnikov, Natalia Nikitina, Vladimir Chernik, Arkady Osipok and Alexander and Tatyana Pozdnyakov. All the believers mentioned were asked about their religious views.\nThe residents of Achinsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory) subjected to searches and interrogations are peaceful, law-abiding citizens whom law enforcement officers decided to equate with extremists only because they suspected them of professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. However, the massive confiscation of Bibles from Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the country confirms Vladimir Putin's words that in fact the fight is not against extremists, but against Christians.\n","category":"siloviki","date":"2019-11-25T17:04:16+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2019/11/1405/7_bibles2_hu_98cc54593df84d29.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2019/11/1405/7_bibles2_hu_9b31467cfd75625d.jpg","webp":"/news/2019/11/1405/7_bibles2_hu_aec39a2b2970d4fe.webp","webp2x":"/news/2019/11/1405/7_bibles2_hu_ed0c96598c0f7258.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2019/11/1405.html","regions":["krasnoyarsk"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["search","translations","interrogation","elderly"],"title":"Five Bibles and two New Testaments were seized from residents of Achinsk","type":"news"},{"body":"On September 4, 2019, in the trial of six Jehovah's Witnesses in Saratov , the floor was given to the well-known religious scholar, Doctor of Philosophy, State Counselor of the Russian Federation Sergey Igorevich Ivanenko. Here are excerpts from his testimony.\nOn the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses. \"Jehovah's Witnesses can be called a denomination, it is an independent movement in Christianity. It is not the most numerous - according to the latest data, there are about 8 and a half million Jehovah's Witnesses in the world. One of the main features of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the so-called last days have now come, that is, Jesus Christ has already reigned in heaven as a rightful ruler, and Jehovah's Witnesses must obey him as their religious leader and mentor. Therefore, they must preach, very zealously fulfill the precepts that support the Holy Scripture of Christians - the Bible, and be guided by them in their daily lives.\n\"If Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the head of their congregation is Jesus Christ, he is the Son of God, if they recognize the Bible and study the Bible, call themselves Christians, from a religious point of view, they are also a trend within Christianity.\"\nOn the religious life and practice of Jehovah's Witnesses. \"Jehovah's Witnesses have a very significant feature: they do not rely on some harsh disciplines, the authority of some leaders, but try to form a conscience trained in the Bible among their followers, so that a person can independently, voluntarily make decisions following the Bible.\"\n\"Jehovah's Witnesses try to follow what is in the Bible, which should correspond to the principles that were laid down by Jesus Christ and his disciples in the first century AD.\"\n\"If we talk about joint confession of faith, which is expressed in Bible study, answering questions on biblical topics, singing songs that are also based on biblical texts, then Jehovah's Witnesses have an emphasized desire to rely on the Bible in everything. That is, if we are talking about a religious chant, at the very beginning there is necessarily a reference to which biblical text this term is based, the lyrics of the song, what it should express from the point of view of the religious needs and beliefs of the believer.\n\"They also have the conviction that Christians must necessarily carry out their religious life on the basis of meetings. And here, too, Jehovah's Witnesses analyze the New Testament, what is said about Jesus Christ, his disciples, his followers, about the first stages of the development of the Christian church... Jehovah's Witnesses are convinced that they should also practice their religious life in religious meetings.\"\n\"They emphasize that disciples of Jesus Christ can be recognized by the fact that there will be love between them.\"\nOn the alleged ban on the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. \"I am not aware of any court decisions or legislative acts that would say that the internal structure of Jehovah's Witnesses contradicts the legislation of the Russian Federation, and would contain any prohibitions related to the doctrine or cult practice of Jehovah's Witnesses.\"\n\"It was not about banning worship services, some kind of cult actions, but it was about what from the point of view of the Supreme Court was considered as extremist activity.\"\nAccusations of extremism against Jehovah's Witnesses. \"Initially, some publications of Jehovah's Witnesses were recognized as extremist, in which, according to experts, it was claimed that the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses was the only true one, and the rest of the religions were false. This statement is present in other denominations, but in this case the claims were made against Jehovah's Witnesses. The assertion that only their religion was true and that all others were false was interpreted as propaganda of religious superiority.\n\"[The court's decision] seems to me as a religious scholar to be vulnerable from the point of view that, if desired, in any religious denomination you can find the statement that only our religion is correct, and the rest are false or largely mistaken.\"\n\"If we talk about the fact that believers consider their religion to be absolute truth, and other religions are either completely false or essentially false, this is certainly present in any believer. And it must be present, because otherwise you will be credited with a hypocrite.\n\"Jehovah's Witnesses are pacifists, they are quite consistently pursuing a line so as not to destroy social foundations. Rather, they advocate the primacy of biblical principles. God's laws are a priority for them. But to the extent that God's laws do not contradict earthly laws, Jehovah's Witnesses are very consistent and purposeful in trying to keep earthly laws. It is no coincidence that there are quite a few reports that it is Jehovah's Witnesses who return some lost wallets, pay fines and taxes, although they can evade them. This is their conscious choice, and in this sense I would not blame them for any extremist encroachments.\"\nOn the need for legal entities to profess their faith. \"The decisions of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation show that ... most of the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses did not have a legal entity and were not registered. Therefore, it is wrong to say that any Jehovah's Witness in some territory is necessarily a member of a legal entity.\"\n\"The main content of the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses is carried out by those canonical structures that are created in accordance with biblical principles.\"\n\"As for legal entities ... I carefully studied their statutes, there are no overseers, no elders, no pioneers, none of these terms are present there. There we are usually talking about the founders - this is a limited circle of people, about 10 people. As for purely canonical activities, they reflect not the legal, but the canonical side of the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses. It is the same in different countries and in different regions.\"\n\"Jehovah's Witnesses have taken note [of the Supreme Court's decision], that is, in their activities they strive not to explicitly violate this decision of the Supreme Court. But at the same time, they will continue their activities as a religious denomination that is not prohibited by the authorities. They continued their activities as private individuals professing their religion. That is, from their point of view, from a religious point of view, this activity does not violate the decision of the Supreme Court.\"\nOn the preaching activity of Jehovah's Witnesses. \"Jehovah's Witnesses are distinguished by the fact that they are very active in preaching. I would put Jehovah's Witnesses in the first place in terms of their preaching activity, zeal, so that every believer must be a preacher and devote some time to preaching.\"\n\"They usually say this: the Bible says this, a person can take the Bible himself and check it. If a person agrees, he goes along with them. If he disputes it, he doesn't go with them. There is no compulsion. But their explanation is consistent and logical in its own way. This is the attraction for some people of their preaching. Their preaching does not work, in my opinion, for everyone. If a person is more mystical, wants some revelations from God or some supernatural spiritual powers, he will not go to Jehovah's Witnesses ... And more rational people who want to reach everything with their minds, live in accordance with this consistently, they will come to Jehovah's Witnesses.\"\nOn the attitude of Jehovah's Witnesses to the Bible. The peculiarity of Jehovah's Witnesses is that they use any translation of the Bible both for preaching and for studying. They have a keen interest in distributing the Bible in different languages. In this sense, they are bibliocentric. Their own translation was indeed recognized as extremist in our country ... Perhaps those who accepted it thought that Jehovah's Witnesses were attached exclusively to this translation and if it was excluded from the game, Jehovah's Witnesses would give up. This is a wrong judgment. For Jehovah's Witnesses, each translation of the Bible has its own value.\"\nOn the attitude of Jehovah's Witnesses to blood transfusions. \"The Bible says that 'the soul is in the blood' and therefore blood should not be consumed. We are talking about a food ban, but they interpret it broadly. They believe that blood should not be consumed in any form: neither in food (they will not eat blood sausage), nor [in the form of] blood transfusions. But they agree to the use of small fractions of blood - this is the voluntary choice of the believer ... They are not for dying by refusing a blood transfusion, but for good treatment so that a person receives first-class medical care. The blood transfusion itself, from their point of view and from the point of view of many medical aspects, is dangerous, because you can get AIDS and something else. Bloodless surgery provides more guarantees, and often in reality – I looked at the statistics – wealthy people often prefer to do without blood transfusions, because it guarantees greater safety in terms of freedom from infections and complications.\nAbout the collection of donations by Jehovah's Witnesses. \"A person may not make any donations. He can, roughly speaking, go to meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses all his life and not donate a ruble or a dollar. But he can also sacrifice - that's his choice.\nDespite strong expert arguments that Jehovah's Witnesses are ordinary Christians and not criminals, all six defendants in the Saratov case were found guilty for their faith and sentenced to various prison terms. Persecution of hundreds of their fellow believers across the country continues.\nSergey Ivanenko is the author of two scientific papers on Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. They can be found in the section \"Religious Studies\".\n","category":"rights","date":"2019-09-24T16:05:29+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2019/09/1155/ivanenko-01_hu_ccd7bda83d3d10ca.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2019/09/1155/ivanenko-01.jpg","webp":"/news/2019/09/1155/ivanenko-01_hu_d578c036ca8a6a83.webp","webp2x":"/news/2019/09/1155/ivanenko-01_hu_1d4f29c069e489ac.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2019/09/1155.html","regions":["saratov"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["Bible-ban","translations","expert-comments","review","liquidation","fsem","analytics"],"title":"The well-known religious scholar Sergey Ivanenko spoke in the trial of Jehovah's Witnesses. What did he say?","type":"news"},{"body":"\"I am an employee of the Institute of Oriental Studies, I teach ancient languages, including some biblical disciplines. Participated in the Bible translation project.\nI am not very familiar with this translation, but I have some complaints, purely linguistic, historical and cultural. Everyone has the right, if he is competent enough to do so, to translate and interpret the biblical text. At the same time, others have the right to criticize him.\nOne perfect translation would be good, but it is impossible, because there is no perfection in the world. And when there are several alternative translations on which you can say something like that, then this is an absolute blessing. The translation of 70 interpreters, judging by the original source, was done in this way. They translated everything, and then they got together and consulted.\nEvgenia Smagina, Head of the Department of History and Culture of the Ancient East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, translator of the Bible.\n","category":"opinion","date":"2017-12-04T12:16:14+03:00","duration":"1:00","image":{"jpg":"/news/2017/12/267/smagina_image_hu_a581b5f155688434.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2017/12/267/smagina_image.jpg","webp":"/news/2017/12/267/smagina_image_hu_c0598b228c555258.webp","webp2x":"/news/2017/12/267/smagina_image_hu_30a115e88e0246a8.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2017/12/267.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["Bible-ban","expert-comments","bible-ban","translations"],"title":"Evgenia Smagina: \"Several alternative translations are an absolute blessing\"","type":"video"},{"body":"In 2017, a complete translation of the Bible appeared for the first time in Uzbek, the mother tongue of more than 25 million people. Moreover, almost simultaneously, the release of two Uzbek translations of the Bible, prepared independently of each other, was announced! One of these translations (Muqaddas Kitob – Yangi dunyo tarjimashi) was published by Jehovah's Witnesses. It is printed in Japan and is intended for free distribution to everyone. Also available in electronic format (PDF, 22 MB).\nIn Russia alone, about 700 Jehovah's Witnesses use the Uzbek Bible in their religious life. Uzbek-speaking communities of Jehovah's Witnesses also exist in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the United States, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.\nNative speakers speak with praise of this new translation of the Bible. For example, the greeting \"Peace be with you\" found in the Gospels is conveyed in it by the everyday \"Assalom alaikum!\", which literally means \"peace be with you\" in Arabic. Thanks to such translation solutions, the new Bible is easy to read and its text reaches the heart.\nThis 2200-page publication is provided with an extensive research apparatus, including color maps and diagrams, a glossary, a short symphony (concordance), cross-references, explanations and notes. Work on the text took many years. For the first time, the New Testament part of the Bible in Uzbek was published by Jehovah's Witnesses in 2010.\n","category":"activity","date":"2017-11-03T15:20:29+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2017/11/227/mukaddas-14063_hu_f9b8f53bd2caa3b6.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2017/11/227/mukaddas-14063.jpg","webp":"/news/2017/11/227/mukaddas-14063_hu_e007b6139d4e5c9e.webp","webp2x":"/news/2017/11/227/mukaddas-14063_hu_f5f53eb3a4f1f71b.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2017/11/227.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["translations"],"title":"Jehovah's Witnesses Published a Complete Bible in Uzbek","type":"news"},{"body":"On December 27, 2016, the local organization of Jehovah's Witnesses was solemnly awarded a commendation \"for active citizenship and great contribution to the social life of the city.\" For many years, believers have been enthusiastically involved in maintaining cleanliness and comfort in their native Vladikavkaz.\nHundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses have repeatedly responded to the call for help in improving the recreation areas of citizens, for example, in the vicinity of the Vladikavkaz arboretum and the Sapitskaya Budka forest park. More than 2,300 followers of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses live in the city, and over the years they have repeatedly received thanks from the head of the city and the heads of prefectures \"for their active life position\", \"for active participation in public life\", \"for assistance in cleaning and restoring order\", for participating in the \"Plant Your Tree\" campaign and other events.\nInterestingly, earlier in 2010, Jehovah's Witnesses contributed a slightly different kind of contribution to the national culture. They published and distributed the first complete Bible in the Ossetian language in the republic. Given that UNESCO had listed the Ossetian language as endangered the year before, the publication of the Bible undoubtedly helps future generations to continue to speak their native language.\n","category":"opinions","date":"2017-01-11T12:26:24+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2017/01/83/image1185_hu_24d215c3109df4c3.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2017/01/83/image1185.jpg","webp":"/news/2017/01/83/image1185_hu_ef4d9c4c62d06c22.webp","webp2x":"/news/2017/01/83/image1185_hu_99a4d73909209621.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2017/01/83.html","regions":["osetia"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["translations","gratitude","maintenance"],"title":"Vladikavkaz City Authorities Commend Jehovah's Witnesses","type":"news"},{"body":"The Leningrad-Finland Transport Prosecutor filed a lawsuit to recognize the canonical Bible, seized at customs from Jehovah's Witnesses, as \"extremist material.\" This seems implausible against the background of the fact that in the fall of the year the Russian president put forward and signed a law protecting the Holy Scriptures, including the Bible, from the action of anti-extremist legislation. Nevertheless, the prosecutor's claim is a fait accompli: the first hearing in the case is scheduled for March 15, 2016 in the Vyborg City Court (Leningrad Region).\nThe decision in this case may affect many people, since the Bible is a respected and widespread book in Russia. At least 59 Russian translations of the whole Bible or sections thereof, which have been published at various times since 1819, are in the possession of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.\n","category":"literature","date":"2016-02-11T14:00:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2016/02/31/bible-02_hu_449876c8a0ee6163.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2016/02/31/bible-02.jpg","webp":"/news/2016/02/31/bible-02_hu_a78efed9441b4440.webp","webp2x":"/news/2016/02/31/bible-02_hu_7480bbf39dc5c13c.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2016/02/31.html","regions":["leningrad_obl"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["Bible-ban","bible-ban","translations"],"title":"For the first time in history, the prosecutor's office is seeking to ban the Bible itself through the courts!","type":"news"},{"body":"2014 was a special year in the history of translating the Bible into the Kazakh language. More than three thousand delegates to the convention of Jehovah's Witnesses held in September each received a copy of a new, modern translation of the Holy Scriptures known as the New World Translation.\nA little later, in October, the center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Almaty held an open day, during which each visitor also received a new Bible. The event was attended by the head of the Department of Religious Affairs Nurzhan Zhaparkul, as well as religious scholars and foreign diplomats, it was reported by the Kazakh media.\nThe edition of the Bible made by Jehovah's Witnesses was highly appreciated by specialists. Thus, linguist and expert on Turkic languages Alexander Garkavets noted: \"The translators of Jehovah's Witnesses have done an impressive job.\" He praised them for their skillful use of the potential of the Kazakh language and the use of the \"living word\".\nThe New World Translation is a modern, understandable translation of the Bible, published in more than 130 languages, including Russian, Ossetian and Tatar. Its total circulation has exceeded 200 million, making it one of the most widely distributed editions of the Bible in the world.\n","category":"activity","date":"2015-02-01T14:00:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2015/02/26/kazakh_nwt-01_hu_e20a7e967b192b4a.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2015/02/26/kazakh_nwt-01.jpg","webp":"/news/2015/02/26/kazakh_nwt-01_hu_8db49f8cd9b2331c.webp","webp2x":"/news/2015/02/26/kazakh_nwt-01_hu_cad7c6305df4b2a0.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2015/02/26.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["languages","translations"],"title":"A modern translation of the Bible into Kazakh has been published","type":"news"}]