[{"body":"“To be expelled forever... 2 hours to pack.” This is how Operation North, the largest deportation based on religion in the history of the USSR, began 75 years ago, on April 1, 1951. The fatal words, signed by Stalin, echoed in the homes of thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today in Russia, their children and grandchildren are being persecuted for their faith. Growing up they heard reports about night raids, inhumane conditions in freight cars, and the uninhabited Siberian wilderness. For today’s prisoners of conscience, those stories are not merely family heritage — it is their reality.\nJehovah’s Witnesses — to the North Documents, lists and testimonies of those who survived deportation, and information on the reasons for and the course of Operation North are available at 1951deport.org. In the early 1940s, Soviet authorities accused Jehovah’s Witnesses of “anti-Soviet activity,” the trigger being their refusal to compromise Christian principles and to give unconditional support to party ideology.\nBelievers, deported from the Ukrainian SSR, gathered near their new home, barracks. Up to six families could live in a single room. They slept on bunks and took turns cooking on a stove in the middle. Dunayka settlement, Irkutsk Region. 1951. Persecution came in waves. Between 1947 and 1950, at least 1,000 Witnesses were sentenced to lengthy terms in labor camps, and hundreds were deported beyond the Urals. The peak came in 1951. On April 1, the deportation of Jehovah’s Witnesses from the Belorussian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldavian, and Estonian SSRs began. A week later, on April 8, they came for believers in the Ukrainian SSR. In just a few days, 9,793 Jehovah’s Witnesses were deported from these regions. Young and old, families with children — all were deported to the Tomsk and Irkutsk Regions and Krasnoyarsk Territory.\nTo date, Russian authorities have groundlessly charged more than 940 Jehovah’s Witnesses with extremism, for “undermining the constitutional order and posing a threat to public security.” About a dozen and a half of them are descendants of these same deportees.\n“So many in authority refuse to acknowledge the obvious” In June 2022, Yevgeniy Zinich, 59, from Krasnoyarsk was sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment for his faith. He is serving his sentence in the Siberian city of Surgut. As children, the believer’s parents — also Jehovah’s Witnesses — were deported from the Lviv Region to Khakassia under Operation North.\nDeported women and girls performed heavy labor in logging camps. Bikhtuil settlement, Tomsk Region. 1956. “Neither my mother nor her parents harbored any anger toward their oppressors... Within the family they spoke about the cruel treatment they endured, but without hatred or a desire for revenge,” Yevgeniy told the court shortly before sentencing. “It deeply saddens my mother... that so many in authority refuse to acknowledge the obvious — that my faith excludes extremism. She [who will turn 87 in April] very much hopes to live to see the day I am acquitted.”\nYevgeniy’s wife, Mariya, will not see it. “According to doctors, the stress caused by my criminal prosecution was one of the reasons for her premature death,” Yevgeniy says. Mariya’s parents also survived deportation.\n“It’s like we’ve taken up the baton” The exiles were deported in freight cars that were not adapted for transporting people. Cases have been documented when there were more than 50 people in one car. The journey to the destination took 2 to 3 weeks, sometimes more. Aleksandr and Mikhail Shevchuk — brothers from Saransk — are fourth generation Jehovah’s Witnesses. Criminal cases were initiated against both a few years apart, resulting in prison terms: Aleksandr served 2 years, while Mikhail, sentenced to 6.5 years, is being held in a pretrial detention center, awaiting appeal. Repression in their family dates back to the 1940s.\n“First, our great grandfathers — back when they lived in Western Ukraine — were sentenced to 10 years in a colony merely for practicing the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Aleksandr Shevchuk recalls. “Then in 1951 their wives and children were deported to Siberia. In the 1970s, both grandfathers were sent to a colony simply for being Jehovah’s Witnesses. Later, our father was sentenced for refusing military service.”\nAccording to Mikhail, their family’s history of steadfastness helped him face the persecution directed at him personally with dignity. “Grandfather even called me and joked: ‘Well, it’s your turn now,’” Mikhail recalls. “It’s like we’ve taken up the baton.”\n“I want to keep walking in my parents’ footsteps” Aleksandr Ursu in exile with his family. Aleksandr Ursu is already 86. As a child, he was deported from Moldova together with his parents and other relatives. He recalls: “It was July 6, 1949. I was nine and a half. It was still dark when the soldiers woke us up. They came in and read out that we were being sent into permanent exile. Two soldiers began to tear things from the walls and packing them: take them, they will be useful to you... They took us to the border of the Kurgan and Tyumen Regions. To the middle of nowhere.”\nAleksandr now lives in Crimea. On November 18, 2018, a special forces unit burst into the home where he lived with his wife and his son’s family. Force was used against elderly Aleksandr.\nViktor Ursu, Aleksandr’s 60 year old son, is currently imprisoned. He was sentenced to 6 years in a penal colony for his religious beliefs. His address to the court before sentencing drew numerous historical parallels: “Lacking the ability — or the desire — to convict the believers for their beliefs, they pinned labels on them: Bolshevists, imperialists, spies... Now they are trying to pin the label of extremism on me.”\n“I want to keep walking in the footsteps of my parents, grandmothers and grandfathers, and many dear to me,” Viktor concluded. “They were willing to hold on to what they knew to be true, no matter the cost.”\n“Renounce your faith in exchange for an end to criminal prosecution” As in Soviet times, modern day believers can avoid prosecution if they sign a document stating that they are no longer Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yaroslav Kalin, born in exile and a fourth generation Jehovah’s Witness, described the circumstances of his arrest in the fall of 2021 while addressing the court: “When I was taken to the police station, I was given the opportunity to renounce my faith in exchange for ending the criminal prosecution. The investigator confirmed that my ‘guilt’ wasn’t about having committed any actual crime.” Children of deported Jehovah’s Witnesses. Bottom row, second from the left — Yaroslav’s father, Vasiliy Kalin. Iskra settlement, Irkutsk Region, 1954 In March 2024, Yaroslav and eight of his fellow believers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Kalin received 7 years. Before sentencing, he spent more than 2 years in solitary confinement. “I spent 840 days in ‘solitary’ — in the worst, inhumane conditions. I thank Jehovah that he allowed me not to lose my mind, that I stand before you alive and healthy,” he said during the court hearings.\nIn court, Yaroslav thanked not only God. He expressed gratitude to court staff and to the prosecutor for their respectful treatment.\n“Suffering repression, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not become embittered and do not stop being Christians. There are no handcuffs or bars that can shackle genuine faith,” commented Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a representative of the European Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Those who have faced repression — then and now — are often among the first to hurry to help new prisoners of conscience.”\n“I received letters of support from children and grandchildren of victims of repression,” said Yekaterina Pegasheva of Yoshkar Ola in court. “They were among the very first to support me when I was held in a pretrial detention center because they know and understand what it’s like.”\nFive years ago, shortly after the 70th anniversary of Operation North, the court gave Yekaterina a suspended sentence of 6.5 years.\n“Guided by a sense of repentance” A partial list of descendants of repressed believers who are being persecuted in contemporary Russia and Crimea: Yevgenіy Zinich, Aleksandr Shevchuk, Mikhail Shevchuk, Roman Ostapenko, Yaroslav Kalin, Ivan Shulyuk, Aleksandr and Anastasiya Gaytur, Viktor Ursu, Adam Svarichevskіy, Roman Gumenyuk. On March 14, 1996, the President of the Russian Federation signed Decree No. 378, “On Measures to Rehabilitate Clergy and Believers Who Have Become Victims of Unjustified Repression.” “In order to restore justice and the lawful rights of citizens of Russia to freedom of conscience and religion, guided by a sense of repentance,” the Russian state recognized that the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses had been unjustified. Many families still keep certificates identifying them as victims of repression and receive benefits on that basis.\n","category":"analytics","date":"2026-04-01T15:59:06+03:00","duration":"9:26","image":{"jpg":"/news/2026/04/011559/image_hu_569f3512f4a7b128.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2026/04/011559/image_hu_e12b0da5f9a75a53.jpg","webp":"/news/2026/04/011559/image_hu_ad14f4b16215c112.webp","webp2x":"/news/2026/04/011559/image_hu_f0f52e29919fc4d.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2026/04/011559.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["ussr","deportation","families","search","siloviks-violence","1951deport"],"title":"75 Years Since Operation North — Descendants of Deported Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Persecuted Just Like Their Predecessors","type":"news"},{"body":"On September 15, 2025, Judge Andrey Petrov found Anastasiya Gaytur, 29, guilty of extremism and fined her 300,000 rubles. \u0026quot;Faced with criminal prosecution for my faith, I feel that they artificially want to make me a criminal\u0026quot;, she said in the Kurgan City Court.\nAnastasiya argued her position as follows: \u0026quot;There is not a single negative aspect in the case, there are no people whose lives I would have ruined. Even the witnesses for the prosecution didn\u0026#39;t say anything bad about me.\u0026quot; According to the defense, during seven court sessions which took place over 3 months, only the religious affiliation of the believer was proved.\nAs a fourth-generation Jehovah\u0026#39;s Witness, Anastasiya knows firsthand what repression for faith is: her relatives were deported from the Moldavian SSR to Siberia in the summer of 1949 as part of Operation South. The prosecution of Anastasiya began in 2024, a year after a criminal case was initiated against her father Aleksandr. Since then, she has faced a number of restrictions: a recognizance agreement, blocked accounts, loss of her job (she was a cleaner in the same court that considered her case).\nAnastasiya says: \u0026quot;It was difficult for my body to adapt to the new realities, it began to malfunction, so I had to go to the hospital.\u0026quot; Anastasiya was able to cope with all the difficulties thanks to the help of loved ones. \u0026quot;They know better than anyone else how my nerves and health were affected due to this unfair prosecution,\u0026quot; she said. She also spoke warmly of her friends who comforted her, showed love and care, and gave her gifts.\nThe criminal prosecution had an impact on Anastasiya\u0026#39;s view on life. \u0026quot;Although I have never been well-off and have always appreciated simple things, but with the prosecution,\u0026quot; she admitted,\u0026quot; I began to thank God more that, for example, I spend the night at home in my cozy room, and not in a pretrial detention center; I sleep on my comfortable sofa with clean bed linen without cockroaches; I can eat and sleep as much as necessary; breathe fresh air; see my family in person.\u0026quot; At the same time, Anastasiya remains true to her beliefs: \u0026quot;I will not give up the path I have chosen nor stop being who I am — a Christian.\u0026quot;\nIn present-day Russia, at least five families of Jehovah\u0026#39;s Witnesses, including Aleksandr Gaytur, Ivan Shulyuk, Viktor Ursu, Yevgeniy Zinich, Aleksandr, and Mikhail Shevchuk, have been prosecuted on the same grounds on which their relatives were exiled to Siberia during the Soviet era.\n","category":"verdict","date":"2025-09-15T00:00:00Z","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2025/09/160938/image_hu_e71ef4e0acd000ee.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2025/09/160938/image_hu_8a6015aa3467b41e.jpg","webp":"/news/2025/09/160938/image_hu_fe44b9e1491d95bd.webp","webp2x":"/news/2025/09/160938/image_hu_e25a027e1a4c6b4d.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2025/09/160938.html","regions":["kurgan"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["sentence","282.2-2","fine","families","ussr"],"title":"\"I Will Not Stop Being A Christian\" — Anastasiya Gaytur, Descendant of Victims of Repression, Convicted for Her Beliefs","type":"news"},{"body":"In her final statement, Anastasiya says that as a child she became acquainted with Bible teachings and began to attend meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses. She notes: \"After 29 years I would simply be saturated with extremism if it was there. No doubt, I would speak differently, behave differently, live differently. But there is not a single negative aspect in the case.\"\n","caseTitle":"The Case of Gaytur in Kurgan","date":"2025-09-11T00:00:00Z","permalink":"/en/cases/kurgan5/index.html#20250911","regions":["kurgan"],"tags":["final-statement","ussr"],"type":"timeline"},{"body":"On March 1, 2024, Oleg Danilov, convicted for his faith in Jehovah God, was released from the penal colony in the town of Dvubratskiy. He was met by relatives and friends.\nOleg Danilov is a third-generation Jehovah\u0026#39;s Witness. Back in 1958, his grandparents got to know believers exiled to Siberia. Soon the repressions also affected Oleg\u0026#39;s family: his uncle was sentenced to 3 years for refusing to serve in the army on religious grounds. Oleg became a victim of persecution for his faith, 60 years later.\nIn March 2021, the Abinsk District Court found Danilov, who lived in Kholmskaya town, guilty of extremism. During his imprisonment, the believer had to serve his term in 3 colonies; he spent most of his time in strict conditions of detention \u0026ndash; due to unjustified penalties from the colonies\u0026#39; administration, Oleg was placed in a punishment cell.\n\u0026quot;Oleg and I have always been very close,\u0026quot; said Danilov\u0026#39;s wife, Natalia. \u0026quot;When he was taken away, it was as if a part of me had been torn out and a bleeding wound was left.\u0026quot; She also noted: \u0026quot;The carefree youth of our sons abruptly turned into adulthood with responsibilities and solving many problems. But they handled it very well. Oleg \u0026#39;s example, which they had seen when he was around, helped them a lot.\u0026quot;\nOleg Danilov meets his wife. March 1, 2024 Friends greatly supported the Danilov family. \u0026quot;Words cannot express how much love I felt from the brothers and sisters during this difficult time. They were always there, calling, writing, giving flowers, postcards, gifts, letters and much more,\u0026quot; Natalia said.\n\u0026quot;Looking at my father, I understand that his faith is not built on a shaky foundation,\u0026quot; Oleg\u0026#39;s son, Nikita said before his father\u0026#39;s release. \u0026quot;It\u0026#39;s not easy to accept all the challenges. It\u0026#39;s not easy to say goodbye to your family, it\u0026#39;s not easy to love your enemies, it\u0026#39;s not easy to encourage others when it\u0026#39;s hard for yourself. He gave his life into the caring hands of Jehovah, and as these events have shown, God will never abandon us.\u0026quot;\nIn the town of Kholmskaya, with a population of less than 19,000 people, 7 believers have faced criminal prosecution. In addition to Danilov, two of his fellow believers have already served their sentences in a penal colony: Aleksandr Shcherbina was released in February, and Aleksandr Nikolayev in September 2023.\n","category":"sentence","date":"2024-03-01T16:32:22+02:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2024/03/011632/image_hu_acdb5f2f6f85970b.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2024/03/011632/image_hu_a1e9607e2f9a4647.jpg","webp":"/news/2024/03/011632/image_hu_d46f0537c3567e78.webp","webp2x":"/news/2024/03/011632/image_hu_b77734757afb463b.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2024/03/011632.html","regions":["krasnodar"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["release","ussr"],"title":"Oleg Danilov, One of Jehovah's Witness from Kholmskaya, Was Released After Serving 3 Years in Prison for His Faith","type":"news"},{"body":"Aleksandr Gaitur is a third-generation Jehovah\u0026#39;s Witness. He was born and raised in Siberia, where his parents were exiled in 1949 along with their families from the Moldavian SSR for being Jehovah\u0026#39;s Witnesses. In 1989, the Gaitur family was rehabilitated, having received the status of victims of political repression. But 34 years later, Aleksandr faced criminal prosecution for his faith. Sometime later, the believer became seriously ill. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and classified as having a disability.\nHe was born in 1962 in the village of Voroshilovo (Kurgan region). By this time, the family already had a son and a daughter. Later, Aleksandr had another brother and sister.\nAs a child, the boy was fond of sports and fishing. In 1969, the family was allowed to return to Moldova. There, Aleksandr graduated from a construction school with a degree in carpentry. At the same time, he studied at the Kishinev football school and for some time played in the youth national football team of the MSSR. He also played for district teams in hockey, basketball and volleyball.\nAleksandr has worked as a builder all his life. In the early 1980s, he moved to Kurgan for work, and later settled in the village of Novoberyozovo, Petukhov district. In 1989, Aleksandr met his future wife Svetlana, and in 1992 they got married. The following year, they embarked on the Christian path. \u0026quot;I have always considered myself one of Jehovah\u0026#39;s Witnesses,\u0026quot; recalls Aleksandr. \u0026quot;I was attracted to the truth by the example of my parents: serving God was the main goal of their lives, and they tried to instill in us, children, love for God and neighbors. I have also always been amazed at the accuracy of Bible prophecy fulfillment.\u0026quot;\nThe couple raised three children, they already have three grandchildren. Recently, Aleksandr has been fond of fishing and beekeeping. Svetlana is a housewife, she likes to garden, run a farm in which there are chickens and a goat.\nThe criminal prosecution of Aleksandr had a negative impact on the life of his family. \u0026quot;I started having problems with my work, several clients refused my services,\u0026quot; the believer said. The search and interrogation were stressful for his wife and 86-year-old mother. What was happening to Aleksandr made her remember the severity of the repression that she herself had to endure many years ago. She wonders: \u0026quot;Why, after the rehabilitation of our family, do my children and grandchildren have to face persecution again?\u0026quot;\nNumerous relatives of Aleksandr and Svetlana worry about them and consider the criminal case against the believer unfair.\n","date":"2024-03-21","image":{"jpg":"/prisoners/gaytur/photo_hu_52aaccc764f3e6ef.jpg","jpg2x":"/prisoners/gaytur/photo_hu_c69626639d6d8a02.jpg","webp":"/prisoners/gaytur/photo_hu_ce98a598b0ecd8c3.webp","webp2x":"/prisoners/gaytur/photo_hu_29697ea3c84bf694.webp"},"permalink":"/en/prisoners/gaytur.html","regions":["kurgan"],"tags":["ussr","elderly","families","disability"],"title":"Aleksandr Gaytur","type":"prisoners"},{"body":"On June 27, 2022, Nataliya Nikolayeva, judge of the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Krasnoyarsk, sentenced Jehovah's Witness Yevgeniy Zinich to 6 years in penal colony because he did not renounce his faith in Jehovah God after the confession's Russian legal entities were banned in 2017. The believer was taken into custody in the courtroom.\nYevgeniy Zinich, 56, is a third-generation Jehovah's Witness. His family had already been subjected to religious repression by the authorities: for refusing to take up arms for religious reasons, his grandfather received a 5-year prison term, in 1951, Yevgeniy’s mother and her parents were exiled to Khakassia as part of Operation “North”, and his father was sentenced to 10 years for transporting religious literature. The family of Yevgeniy’s wife, Mariya, also faced a similar situation. During the criminal prosecution of Yevgeniy, his wife, a disabled person of group II, died of a serious illness. The believer takes care of his elderly mother.\n“The wife did not wait for my acquittal. The experiences caused by my criminal prosecution, according to the doctors, became one of the reasons for her premature death, — said Yevgeniy Zinich in his last plea. — My mother, who is already 83 years old, would also very much like to live to see the time when I, her son, will be acquitted. She is very upset that so many people in power do not want to admit the obvious — my faith excludes extremism — and make great efforts to try to prove the opposite”.\nZinich came to the attention of law enforcement agencies in November 2018, then in Krasnoyarsk for the first time there were mass searches of believers. Initially, Yevgeniy was a witness in the case against another believer, Andrey Stupnikov, but over time he himself was accused of organizing “illegal activities of Jehovah's Witnesses.” In December 2020, the couple's apartment was searched. Since October 2021, Yevgeniy has been under house arrest. Investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia Konstantin Zhuikov investigated the case for 9 months. After that, on November 1, 2021, the case was submitted to the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Krasnoyarsk, where it was heard for about 8 months.\nThe decision of the court has not entered into force and can be appealed. The believer insists on his complete innocence: “The arguments that all my actions have nothing to do with the alleged crime, but are only the realization of my rights to religious life, guaranteed to me by the legislation of the Russian Federation, my lawyer and I presented in detail to the court. I'm sure they are more than convincing.\"\nIn total, 27 Jehovah's Witnesses, who are defendants in 18 criminal cases, faced criminal prosecution in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Five believers have already been convicted.\nAccording to the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of October 28, 2021, worship services of Jehovah's Witnesses, their joint performance of rites and ceremonies do not in themselves constitute a crime. Liquidation of legal entities of Jehovah's Witnesses in this case is not a basis for criminal prosecution of individual believers.\n","category":"verdict","date":"2022-06-27T16:13:27+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2022/06/271613/image_hu_492ae5436e154ba8.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2022/06/271613/image_hu_83dd9a37e43f74c1.jpg","webp":"/news/2022/06/271613/image_hu_6a0315a0af0c11a3.webp","webp2x":"/news/2022/06/271613/image_hu_e544a1c19726aa26.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2022/06/271613.html","regions":["krasnoyarsk"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["liberty-deprivation","sentence","families","282.2-1","ussr"],"title":"In Krasnoyarsk, Yevgeniy Zinich, a Descendant of Jehovah's Witnesses Who Were Repressed in Soviet Times, Was Sentenced to Six Years in Penal Colony","type":"news"},{"body":"On June 14, 2022, at least 5 civilians were subjected to searches in the town of Baley, Trans-Baikal Territory. These are Lidiya Bzovi, Yelena Baylukova, 71-year-old Tatyana Kuznetsova and the Saranchuk spouses: 75-year-old Valeriy and 71-year-old Tatyana.\nThe elderly believer Lidiya Bzovi is facing religious persecution for the second time in her life. In 1951, by order of Joseph Stalin, she was exiled to Siberia along with other Jehovah's Witnesses. That sad page in the history of Soviet repressions was called Operation North.\nThe searches were initiated by the investigator of the Nerchinsk Interdistrict Investigation Department N. O. Buintseva. In June 2022, she opened a criminal case No. 12202760012000028 under Part 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (participation in extremist activities). The search warrant was given by the judge of the Baley City Court of the Trans-Baikal Territory O. Yu. Shcheglova.\nIn 2020, the previous wave of searches struck local Jehovah's Witnesses in the Trans-Baikal Territory. They were accompanied by beatings and torture. A criminal case was initiated against seven detainees. One of the believers in June 2022 was sentenced to 6 years in prison, two — to 6.5.\n","category":"siloviki","date":"2022-06-23T10:01:33+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/common/omon_hu_cc21e0c1b202fec1.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/common/omon_hu_ffc696cb236da5bb.jpg","webp":"/news/common/omon_hu_4c87d2ce782042cd.webp","webp2x":"/news/common/omon_hu_9c4da176cf33a608.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2022/06/231001.html","regions":["zabaykalsky"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["search","elderly","282.2-2","families","ussr"],"title":"New Searches in Homes of Believers in the Trans-Baikal Territory. For One Victim, History Repeats Itself 71 Years Later","type":"news"},{"body":"At the defendant's request, the court is reviewing a documentary about Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR and a fragment of a film about believers in Nazi Germany. After that, Ilya Olenin testifies. He says that extremism contradicts his beliefs: \"My grandfather, who worked as the chief prosecutor of Chelyabinsk, said an important idea: 'The main thing in our business is to keep a clear conscience.' It became my life credo.\"\n","caseTitle":"Case of Olenin in Snezhinsk","date":"2022-06-09T00:00:00Z","permalink":"/en/cases/snezhinsk2/index.html#20220609","regions":["chelyabinsk"],"tags":["first-instance","interrogation","ussr","nazi-germany"],"type":"timeline"},{"body":"In court, the films \"How to help a patient without violating his rights\" and \"Faithful in the test. Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union\". After the screening, the defendant emphasizes that Jehovah's Witnesses are civilians who do not take up arms in any country in the world, and not a single negative comment about the authorities was heard from the people giving interviews.\n","caseTitle":"Case of Yakku in Arkhangelsk","date":"2021-04-21T00:00:00Z","permalink":"/en/cases/arkhangelsk2/index.html#20210421","regions":["arkhangelsk"],"tags":["first-instance","ussr"],"type":"timeline"},{"body":"On April 6, 2021, the International Memorial gathered together a number of Russian scholars and human rights activists at a round table dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the exile of Jehovah's Witnesses to Siberia—the largest confessional deportation in the USSR. The video of the event can be viewed in its entirety online (in Russian).\nThe conference announcement notes: “At the beginning of April 1951, the USSR Ministry of State Security conducted another forced resettlement campaign: the families of Jehovah's Witnesses were subject to deportation ... The participants of the round table will talk about the operation itself and the long history of persecution for faith which, alas, has not stopped until now.”\nThe memorandum of the Ministry of State Security (MGB) addressed to Stalin in early April 1951 said: “In order to suppress further anti-Soviet actions of the Jehovist underground, the MGB of the USSR considers it necessary, along with the arrest of the leading members of the Jehovist sect, to evict the identified Jehovists from the borders of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia with families to the Irkutsk and Tomsk regions. A total of 8576 people are subject to eviction (3048 families).”\n“The persecution of this confessional group ... is still happening today, which makes today's examination of the history of Operation North especially relevant in our reality,” said Aleksandr Guryanov, the host of the conference, in his opening remarks.\nPavel Polyan, historian, geographer, specialist in the study of forced migrations in the USSR, spoke about the history of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union and beyond. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Jehovah's Witnesses \"were most actively developed by the Ministry of State Security,\" the specialist noted. “They are excellent missionaries, which was not to the liking of the atheistic secular authorities,” he explained one of the reasons behind the persecution.\nAleksandr Daniel, co-chairman of the St. Petersburg Memorial Society, researcher of the history of dissent in the USSR, focused on the legal aspects of Stalin's persecution—articles of the criminal code and types of punishments. “Counterrevolutionary” and “anti-Soviet” propaganda, “harm to the health of citizens under the guise of inflicting religious rites”—these were the main articles under which Jehovah's Witnesses and members of other confessions were persecuted. Another problem was confusion in the names: “The camp clerks were quite illiterate people, and they constantly referred to Jehovah's Witnesses as Jehovists.”\nValeriy Borshchev, human rights activist, co-chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, member of the Christian Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Believers in the Soviet times, spoke about how the Soviet authorities tried to \"reeducate\" Jehovah's Witnesses using propaganda and other methods. For example, at factories, a Communist party or trade union activist was assigned to each believer to take “patronage” over them. But these attempts were unsuccessful. “The commissioners [for religious affairs] themselves understood that all this was useless and did not work.” Efforts were also made to alienate Soviet Witnesses from communion with their fellow believers in other countries. “Jehovah's Witnesses, we must give them credit, were firm and did not leave behind,” Borshchev emphasized.\nSergey Davidis, member of the Memorial Human Rights Center Council and head of the Support for Political Prisoners program, reviewed the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in contemporary Russia since 1998. He recalled that the only meaningful basis for the Supreme Court's decision of April 20, 2017 to liquidate the organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses was “a declaration of the religious superiority of Jehovah's Witnesses over other religious groups. It is quite obvious that this is an absurd accusation,—he stressed.—The conviction of the correctness of your religious doctrine in comparison with any other creed is natural for any religion.”\nYaroslav Sivulskiy, a representative of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses, spoke about the peculiarities of the life of believers in Siberian special settlements as told by his parents, who were among the repressed. People were forced to build dugouts with their own hands, and nettles and tree bark often served as food. Many died of hunger or disease. Speaking about the reasons for the Soviet and current persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, he stressed that their apoliticality is sometimes mistakenly interpreted as “non-recognition of state power”. In fact, the Witnesses are known for their respectful attitude to authority, law abidance, and hard work. Sivulskiy invited conference participants and all those interested in this topic to the new website 1951deport.org, which contains a lot of historical and archival materials, photographs and videos about Operation North.\nThose present were able to watch a documentary video “70 Years of Operation North” presented by the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses. It is based on interviews with direct participants in the events, as well as historians.\nIn his concluding remarks, Aleksandr Guryanov again turned to the events of our day: \"There is some particular bitterness on the part of the government towards this particular confession.” 70 years later, history repeats itself: law-abiding citizens of the country are again declared criminals only on the basis of their confessional affiliation.\n","category":"analytics","date":"2021-04-13T09:00:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/13/image_hu_47803c48d5f1c641.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/13/image_hu_94804276f45ec40d.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/13/image_hu_b55ecf19aaeff1ab.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/13/image_hu_77738e7dc7ed0e85.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/13.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["1951deport","ussr","review","human-rights-defenders","deportation"],"title":"What Was Said at the International Memorial Society Round Table on the 70th Anniversary of the Siberian Exile of Jehovah's Witnesses?","type":"news"},{"body":"A new website about the mass confessional expulsion of Jehovah's Witnesses for the faith in the Soviet Union - “70 years of Operation North” has been launched. You will be able to visit the 3D museum, find out how and why believers were repressed, hear first-hand stories from the victims of the tragedy and get acquainted with the declassified archives of the USSR Ministry of State Security.\nThe web project was developed for the 70th anniversary of the deportation of about 10,000 believers and their families from the western regions of the Soviet Union, thousands of kilometers from home without the right to return.\nThe 1951deport.org website is available in 3 languages - Russian, English and Ukrainian - and consists of 6 main sections, reflected in the top menu of the main page.\nThe section \"Operation North\" provides answers to basic questions about the deportation: why did it start and how did it proceed? What are its consequences?\nThe \"3D Exhibition\" section allows you to walk along the corridors of the virtual museum and see photos, installations, read secret orders from the authorities to expel innocent people. Having entered the virtual museum, do not forget to turn on the sound (this can be done using the menu in the lower right corner of the screen) - this way you will plunge into the atmosphere of those events even more.\nThe \"Video\" section contains a short documentary film \"70 years of Operation North\". In the headings \"Archive\" and \"Books\" you can study in more detail the documents that shed light on little-known facts about religious repression against Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR. News about press conferences, scientific meetings, etc. in the context of Operation North will be published in the Events section.\n","category":"analytics","date":"2021-04-08T11:27:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/11/image_hu_7002635ad0b9006a.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/11/image_hu_ac1704f2c947fe6a.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/11/image_hu_ec00218898963b51.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/11/image_hu_2c1ebeb39a057122.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/11.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["1951deport","ussr","review","deportation"],"title":"New web project about the deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union: 3D exhibition, photos, documents, books","type":"news"},{"body":"\"To evict forever.\" The government's order for the largest religious deportation in the USSR, which commenced in April of 1951, changed the lives of thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses forever. Men and women, the elderly and babies - about 10,000 individuals - were loaded onto freight trains and transported in inhumane conditions from the western regions of the country to the north without the right to return. They were deprived of their homes, property, and some even their lives for their faith in God, because it did not fit into the framework of Soviet ideology.\nWhat did believers have to endure and what are the parallels with the events in modern Russia? The victims of the tragedy and experts talk about this in a video prepared for the 70th anniversary of the special operation, codenamed \"North\".\n","category":"eyewitnesses","date":"2021-04-07T13:05:00+03:00","duration":"9:26","image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/9/9_hu_9c160327734f0ab.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/9/9_hu_ed1834f429f10400.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/9/9_hu_b61835accb799031.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/9/9_hu_ce05a22793d83f3d.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/9.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["1951deport","ussr","video","expert-comments","expert-conclusions","deportation"],"title":"70 years of Operation North - eyewitnesses and experts discuss the mass deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR","type":"video"},{"body":"On April 8 and 9, 2021, an online scientific and practical conference and a press conference will be held dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the mass deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses, which was organized by the Soviet authorities in April 1951. At that time, about 10,000 believers and their families, including children and the elderly, were deported to eternal settlement in the north of the country just because of their religious views.\nClick to open the press release On April 8, at 11:00 Moscow time, the scientific and practical online conference \"Operation North\" will begin. 70 Years Later: Important Lessons from Religious Repression\". The meeting was organized by the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies, the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) and the Center for Jehovah's Witnesses in Ukraine.\nThe event will be broadcast on YouTube in English, Russian and Ukrainian .\nExperts will discuss the policy of the totalitarian authorities, in particular the Soviet regime in relation to religious organizations; historical facts of the Soviet regime's repression of Jehovah's Witnesses; the current situation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the world (Europe, Asia); the role of the media in shaping public opinion about religious organizations.\nQuestions can be asked to speakers via WhatsApp at +38 (063) 041-71-49.\nClick to open the press release On April 9, at 11:00 Moscow time, an online press conference will be held at the Ukrinform press center in Kyiv, at which materials from the declassified KGB archives will be made public. They will reveal little-known facts of repression suffered by ordinary civilians whose ideology did not coincide with the party's.\nThe press conference will be attended by Head of the Department for Religions and Nationalities of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Andriy Yurash; Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Vice-President of the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies Lyudmila Filipovych; Konstantin Berezhko, PhD in History, visiting researcher at the Technical University of Dresden and the Hannah Arendt Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism; Press Spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses in Ukraine Ivan Rieger.\nThe meeting will also be webcast in English and Ukrainian .\n","category":"analytics","date":"2021-04-07T13:05:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/10/image_hu_93e9444ee79772a7.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/10/image_hu_21228afc1573e5a8.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/10/image_hu_e707fab877187277.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/10/image_hu_b94a643d3065742b.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/10.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["1951deport","ussr","review","deportation"],"title":"On April 8 and 9, a series of online conferences will be held to commemorate the mass deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR","type":"news"},{"body":"The International Historical and Educational Society Memorial holds a round table \"70 Years of Operation \"North\"\" about the persecution of believers in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The MGB USSR conducted Operation North in early April 1951. This was a forced relocation of identified Jehovah's Witnesses with their families to remote areas of the USSR.\nThe conversation will be broadcast online on the International Memorial channel at the link. It will begin on April 6, 2021 at 6:00 p.m.\nPavel Polyan, historian and expert in the study of forced migrations in the USSR, has been invited to participate in the roundtable. He will address the topic of \"Operation North: Deportation for the Faith.” In addition, Aleksandr Daniel, co-chairman of the St. Petersburg Memorial Society, will speak on \"Some specific methods of criminal prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1950s and 1960s.” Human rights activist Valery Borschev of the Moscow Helsinki Group will speak on the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. Sergey Davidis, a member of the Board of the Memorial Human Rights Center and head of the program \"Support for Political Prisoners,\" will speak about \"Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017-2021: chronology, statistics, formal justifications.\" Yaroslav Sivulsky from the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses has been invited to participate in the discussion. The moderator of the round table is Aleksandr Guryanov, head of the Polish Research Program of International Memorial.\nThis round table is not the only commemorative event on the anniversary of Operation North. On April 1, a press conference was held in Moscow (a recording is available online). On the same day in Chisinau a scientific conference was held under the auspices of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova with the participation of Balti and Cahul State Universities. In addition, a scientific conference is planned in Kiev.\n","category":"analytics","date":"2021-04-06T16:21:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/7/image_hu_ab962f7897e2db79.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/7/image_hu_b6c034ada26b0aee.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/7/image_hu_f8ca00cc0fd2a013.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/7/image_hu_c4c4edc6dac0e80.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/7.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["1951deport","ussr","international","review","deportation"],"title":"On April 6, 2021 the International Memorial Society is holding a round table in Moscow entitled \"70 Years of Operation \"North\"\". An online live transmission of the event is being made available","type":"news"},{"body":"On April 1, 2021, in the Rosbalt press center, religious scholars and human rights activists talked about the anniversary of the events of April 1, 1951 - the mass deportation of almost 10 thousand followers of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses from the Baltic States, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine to Siberia, from Tomsk to Lake Baikal. The conference was broadcast in its entirety on the Internet.\nYaroslav Sivulsky, a representative of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses, mentioned in his speech that Operation North directly affected his family. \"By checking archival sources, we were able to establish that a total of 9,793 Jehovah's Witnesses and their family members were deported,\" Sivulsky said, \"This figure includes those who died and were born on the road.” His presentation contained many additional details related to the operation.\nReligious scholar Sergey Ivanenko spoke about the role of propaganda in the USSR, as well as its role in contemporary events in Russia with followers of this religion. Making a thorough review, Ivanenko emphasized: \"The policy of forceful suppression of Jehovah's Witnesses, which has been carried out in the Russian Federation since 2017, is futile. The lessons of Operation North and the analysis of the current situation, including the steadfastness of Jehovah's Witnesses in defending their beliefs, bear witness to this. It seems advisable, from the point of view of Russia's national interests, to implement a set of measures to return Jehovah's Witnesses to the legal field\".\nKazakhstan religious scholar Artur Artemiev, author of Jehovah's Witnesses in Kazakhstan: A Social-Historical and Religious Analysis, revised in 2020, described how the Soviet policy of exiles and camps applied to Jehovah's Witnesses affected the growth of the religion's followers in his country.\nThe topic addressed by human rights activist Valery Borschev of the Moscow Helsinki Group was formulated as follows: \"The Soviet Roots of Modern Discrimination against Believers.\" One of his substantiated theses: \"Persecution only strengthens Jehovah's Witnesses. The authorities must understand that.\"\nValentin Gefter, a member of the Expert Council under the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, addressed \"How Prisoners of Conscience Emerge in Modern Russia.” Discussing the root of persecution, he said: \"Jehovah's Witnesses are not against the state—they are outside the state.\" He went on to explain how and why this causes persecution.\nAleksandr Verkhovsky, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council, said that the organization he heads (the Sova Information and Analytical Center) keeps records of all cases of improper application of the extremism law to Jehovah's Witnesses. \"Let's start with the good,\" Verkhovsky said, \"Last year, 110 new defendants were added to the cases of banned Jehovah's Witnesses organizations. It would seem that what is good here? That it is half as many as the year before. Will this campaign be reduced? This is a very important question, and we do not know the answer.\" Verkhovsky is convinced that the state must sooner or later stop persecuting Jehovah's Witnesses. He cited several models of how this might work.\nParticipants had the opportunity to answer journalists' questions.\nThis press conference was not the only commemorative event on the anniversary of Operation North. A similar event was held in Moldova and is planned for Ukraine.\n","category":"analytics","date":"2021-04-03T09:37:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/04/3/image_hu_e53bdf7015c88af6.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/04/3/image_hu_68ff61bd53986104.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/04/3/image_hu_c67fa260f89c05a7.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/04/3/image_hu_24995a40ed265cc9.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/04/3.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["1951deport","ussr","human-rights-defenders","human-right-organizations","expert-comments","deportation"],"title":"\"70th Anniversary of Operation North. Lessons of Persecution\" press conference was held in Moscow","type":"news"},{"body":"In April 1951, MGB officers captured all 9,793 Jehovah's Witnesses identified in the country and took them \"to eternal settlement\" in Siberia. Commemorative events will be held in a number of countries to mark the anniversary of the events. On April 1, 2021, at 13:00 (Moscow time), a video broadcast from the Moscow press center \"Rosbalt\" will begin.\nTopic of the press conference: \"The 70th anniversary of Operation North. Lessons of Repression\". Declassified archival materials, including notes to Stalin from the Minister of State Security, shed light on the logic and mechanisms of repression. How was such a large-scale special operation prepared? How was Operation North different from Stalin's other deportations? Has it solved the tasks? How did believers survive it? What role did anti-religious propaganda play in the life of the country? How has religious policy changed in the country up to our time? What is the reason for the attention of modern Russian law enforcement agencies to Jehovah's Witnesses? Is the scale of modern action comparable to the events of the 1950s? What are the consequences for the state of repression in both the short and historical perspectives?\nParticipants of the press conference: Dr. Philos. religious scholar Artur Artemiev; member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, Director of the SOVA Center Alexander Verkhovsky; D. Philos. religious scholar Sergey Ivanenko; human rights activist and publicist Valentin Gefter; co-chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group Valery Borshchev and representative of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses Yaroslav Sivulsky.\nPlace and time of the press conference: press center \"Rosbalt\" (Moscow, Tablecloth lane). It starts on April 1, 2021 at 13:00. Due to covid restrictions, the number of seats in the Rosbalt press center has been reduced, journalists can obtain accreditation there in advance. The conference will be broadcast online in Russian language; Simultaneous translation into English is organized.\nOther events and innovations will be announced later.\n","category":"analytics","date":"2021-03-31T13:55:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/03/23/image_hu_e53bdf7015c88af6.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/03/23/image_hu_68ff61bd53986104.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/03/23/image_hu_c67fa260f89c05a7.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/03/23/image_hu_24995a40ed265cc9.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/03/23.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["ussr","review","human-rights-defenders","human-right-organizations","deportation"],"title":"The 70th anniversary of the largest confessional deportation in the history of the USSR. Online conference in Moscow","type":"news"},{"body":"The memorial “Mask of Sorrow” erected in this region notorious for the Gulag labor camps recalls the millions of victims of political repression during the years of the USSR. However, dramatic events unfold here again, breaking the lives of innocent people. Three-minute video.\nIn May 2018, the Magadan FSB opened a criminal case for their faith under Article 282.2(1) against 13 local residents. Among them are Sergey Agadzhanov, Lyubov Asatryan, Galina Dergacheva, Sergey Yerkin, Evgeny Zyablov, Inna Kardakova, Konstantin Petrov, Ivan Puida, Viktor Revyakin, Mikhail Solntsev, Oksana Solntseva, Irina Khvostova, Anastasia Chibisova.\n\"The case was opened against four people,\" says one of the accused, 34-year-old Konstantin Petrov. But now they have combined all this into one thing with 13 people.\nKonstantin Petrov has been under investigation for two years. During this time, he managed to serve 2 months in a pre-trial detention center and 8 months under house arrest. It all started on May 30, 2018, when mass searches took place in the homes of peaceful believers in Magadan. He recalls: \"I opened the door and quickly found myself on the floor. Immediately screams, noise. They ran in masks, with weapons, put me on the floor and sat on top. They put a bag over my head, threw it into a car and drove me to the FSB building.\"\nAccording to Konstantin, the security forces tried to force him to cooperate with the investigation, threatening him with serious problems if he refused. \"They exerted emotional pressure in order to force us to accept their point of view,\" says Konstantin Petrov.- We chose a measure of restraint in the form of detention.\"\nAs a result, Konstantin Petrov and three other believers ended up in the Magadan pre-trial detention center. Neither the investigation nor the court took into account Konstantin's state of health.\nValentina Shafurina, mother of Konstantin Petrov: \"He has health problems, he does not digest gluten and lactose. At first, he was covered with a rash. Konstantin Petrov: \"I need special food, and it is clear that there is no such food in the pre-trial detention center, my health was deteriorating.\"\nThe inhuman treatment to which Konstantin and other believers were subjected was the result of a criminal case initiated under the article \"Organization of the activities of an extremist organization.\"\nKonstantin Petrov: \"The investigation is still ongoing, the investigator is collecting some information. According to him, the investigation will not end soon.\nAs in hundreds of other criminal cases against Jehovah's Witnesses throughout Russia, in the case of Konstantin Petrov there is no information about the victims and the damage caused.\nKonstantin Petrov: \"What did we do wrong? If we are believers and just call ourselves Jehovah's Witnesses, is that already a crime?\"\nValentina Shafurina: \"Will they really be imprisoned? I don't know. I can't believe that you can be imprisoned for this.\"\nKonstantin signed a recognizance not to leave. And although he is free, criminal prosecution and imposed restrictions disrupt the life of the family and deprive him of the opportunity to support his elderly mother.\nValentina Shafurina: \"I also called to myself, saying: \"Maybe you will come to me?\" They saved up for tickets to meet us. We haven't met, and I don't know when we'll meet now.\"\nThe memorial to the victims of political repression was created as a monument to the past. But for many believers, the \"Mask of Sorrow\" is becoming an increasingly clear reflection of the present.\n","category":"eyewitnesses","date":"2020-05-19T16:49:00+03:00","duration":"3:18","image":{"jpg":"/news/2020/05/10/image_hu_b2b7add2d64f7c23.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2020/05/10/image.jpg","webp":"/news/2020/05/10/image_hu_ee3be37f50d4acd1.webp","webp2x":"/news/2020/05/10/image_hu_736aad1a6ef963e1.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2020/05/10.html","regions":["magadan"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["search","ussr","282.2-1","sizo","house-arrest","health-risk","recognizance-agreement"],"title":"Kolyma 2.0. The Land of Trampled Freedom Once Again Becomes a Hotbed of Repression","type":"video"},{"body":"More than 4,000 prisoners of concentration camps wore purple triangles on their chests. Because of their faith, they refused to salute Hitler, pick up weapons and fight. On the 75th anniversary of the liberation, the peace-loving Jehovah's Witnesses are again in prison, this time in Russia. How did the liberating country become an oppressor?\nWhy were Jehovah's Witnesses considered \"enemies of the Reich\" in Nazi Germany? Jehovah's Witnesses believed that participation in the leader's personality cult, participation in elections, work in party structures and military enterprises, as well as military service were contrary to the commandments of the Gospel. Of the 35,000 followers of this religion who lived in the territories controlled by Berlin, 11,300 were arrested, 4,200 were sent to concentration camps, and 1,600 died.\nIn 2020, visitors to the memorial museums of former concentration camps will be able to see monuments, plates and stands telling about the feat of faith of Jehovah's Witnesses. For example, the plaque in Sachsenhausen tells the story of 29-year-old Jehovah's Witness August Dieckmann, the first in Nazi Germany to be executed for refusing to serve in the Wehrmacht. In 1939, just three days after the outbreak of World War II, August was summoned to the Gestapo and ordered to sign a conscription document. When he refused, he was placed in solitary confinement, and the camp commander asked the SS for permission to execute Dickmann in the presence of all camp prisoners. Here is how one of the participants of those events told about it: \"The SS shot August Dieckmann and threatened to shoot the others if we did not sign a renunciation of our faith. No one did. We were no longer afraid of their bullets, but of not pleasing Jehovah.\"\nIn 1944-1945, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army participated in the liberation of concentration camp prisoners, including Jehovah's Witnesses. For example, some of the 387 Jehovah's Witnesses sent to Auschwitz were still in the camp on the day of liberation, January 27, 1945. The world as a whole learned about the existence of the concentration camps of the Third Reich only in 1945. Meanwhile, as early as 1937, Jehovah's Witnesses reported on poison gas experiments in the Dachau camp in their journal Consolation, and in 1940 they published the names of 20 concentration camps and described what was happening there. Then they did not attach any importance to this.\nWhy were Jehovah's Witnesses considered \"enemies of the people\" in the Soviet Union? In 1941, when Wehrmacht troops attacked the borders of the USSR, there was not a single Jehovah's Witness among the attackers. The believers were ready to die at the hands of the executioners, but not to shoot at people. At the end of the war, however, when the number of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR increased dramatically at the expense of new territories, the Soviet government responded with ingratitude.\nJehovah's Witnesses in the USSR still believed that participation in the cult of personality of the leader, participation in elections, work in party structures and military enterprises, as well as service in the Soviet army contradicted the Gospel commandments. Already in the early 1950s, thousands of Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses were deported to Siberia without means of subsistence (the infamous Operation North), many died in the Gulag institutions. Some of Jehovah's Witnesses went first to Nazi and then to Soviet camps. Here's one example.\nIn 1943, in Bessarabia, German-controlled authorities sentenced 23-year-old Ephraim Platon to 25 years of hard labor for refusing to take the military oath and take up arms. He told what happened at the recruiting station: \"Eight conscripts, including me, stepped forward. We said that we would not participate in the war, because we adhere to the position of neutrality. We were arrested and severely beaten, so that even my wife barely recognized me. Then we were sent to Chisinau, where we had to appear before a military court. In the bitter cold, we, eight people, chained and urged on by soldiers who did not allow us to eat or drink, walked 140 kilometers in 21 days. When we arrived at the next police station, we were beaten - there were 13 such stations on our way! We survived only by the fact that the locals fed us when we stayed overnight at the polling stations. In May 1945, Bessarabia became part of the USSR, and the believer was released after 2 years of hard labor. But already in 1949, he was again separated from his family and sent on wanderings through the Gulag: first to Kurgan, then to Vorkuta. Only in 1965, the Platon family was able to be released from prison, and they were allowed to return to Moldova only in 1989.\nWhy are Jehovah's Witnesses classified as \"extremist organizations\" in modern Russia? In the indictment documents against believers, there are no victims or harm caused. In the Russian Federation, which considers itself the legal successor of the USSR, the vague concept of \"extremist activity\" is used to persecute Jehovah's Witnesses.\nSince 2017, the authorities of the Russian Federation have launched the most massive repression of Jehovah's Witnesses in the modern world. Law enforcement officers prey on peaceful believers throughout the country, seize Bibles and spiritual books, take them to courts, beat them, and torture them. Among them are the elderly, the disabled, parents of minor children, labor veterans, representatives of professions necessary for society. All Jehovah's Witnesses turned out to be potential criminals in Russia, who could be arrested at any time simply because of their religious views. If in the USSR Jehovah's Witnesses were accused of \"anti-Soviet propaganda\" and were seen as \"enemies of the people\", then in the Russian Federation they are accused of \"extremism\" and \"encroachment on the constitutional order.\" But behind the new formulations are old approaches: a person does not have to commit a crime to be behind bars. It is enough to believe in Jehovah and discuss this faith with others. In modern Russia, what in Germany and the rest of Europe is considered a long-lived nightmare has become a reality again. The EU countries in general (e.g., July 2017, February 2019, March 2020) and Germany in particular (May 2017, June 2019) strongly condemn Russia's actions towards Jehovah's Witnesses.\nDennis Christensen, Sergey Klimov, Konstantin Bazhenov, Felix Makhammadiyev, Alexei Miretsky, Alexey Budenchuk, Roman Gridasov, Gennady German are the names of Jehovah's Witnesses who are currently serving sentences in Russian colonies because of their religious affiliation. Hundreds of their fellow believers are involved in similar cases, dozens are imprisoned in pre-trial detention centers and under house arrest, awaiting sentences under serious criminal articles. \"I love my country, and I don't want my grandchildren to be ashamed of Russia, just as I am ashamed today in front of my grandparents for Stalin's repressions. Just as the citizens of Germany today are ashamed of the years of Nazi rule,\" said the convicted Saratov resident Alexei Miretsky in his last word, after which he added: \"I am sure that sooner or later justice will be restored. All prisoners of conscience who have been subjected to humiliation, insults, theft of property, deprivation of liberty will be acquitted and rehabilitated, as has happened more than once in the history of mankind. The only question is when?\n","category":"analytics","date":"2020-05-06T08:26:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2020/05/3/image_hu_a9615847afff934b.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2020/05/3/image.jpg","webp":"/news/2020/05/3/image_hu_4d97848f2717aa0d.webp","webp2x":"/news/2020/05/3/image_hu_49152367c0ab5cb2.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2020/05/3.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["nazi-germany","ussr","review","international-community","deportation"],"title":"In the Spring of 1945, Russia Freed Jehovah's Witnesses From Concentration Camps. Why, 75 Years Later, Are They Again in Prisons?","type":"news"},{"body":"During the FSB's November operation against Jehovah's Witnesses, 78-year-old Alexandr Ursu, who has a certificate of rehabilitation as a victim of political repression, was knocked down. In a 3-minute interview, he talks about the tragic events of the past, which are repeated in the present.\nAlexandru Ursu: \"It was July 6, 1949. I was nine and a half. It was still dark in the morning when we were woken up. When we broke in, we saw that they were military men. They came in and read out that they were evicting them to an eternal settlement. Two soldiers began to tear things from the walls that were on the walls, and put them together: take it, because it will be useful to you with you.\nWhile others were brought and put in a wagon, relatives from our village brought us something from food. Because there was almost nothing to take with us, we did not know that we would be evicted. There was no warning, it was all sudden.\nThere were already bunks in two floors in the car. We were accommodated on the ground floor. There is another family above, there were two old ones traveling with us. On the contrary, the other two families were in this car, it was a two-axle car. They had just had a little child, two or three months old. And most of it... There were cries because it was very hot. And the heat became when we were kept for hours somewhere on a station or in the steppe. And the air came only through a small window, through which even my head could hardly crawl to look. Then the brothers made a toilet. They cut a hole in the floor and made a screen so that they could go to the toilet.\nThere was always hunger. All the time - hunger and hunger.\nWe were taken to the border of the Kurgan and Tyumen regions. To the dead end, to the wilderness...\"\nNovember 15, 2018, Dzhankoy. The FSB, with the support of riot police, carried out brutal incursions into the homes of citizens suspected of practicing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. A criminal case has been opened under Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.\nFSB officer: \"You don't need to shoot.\"\nUnknown voice: \"What's going on, please tell me?\"\nFSB officer: \"Some organization banned in Russia, sectarians. Investigative actions are underway, so please do not interfere.\"\nAs of November 19, 2018, 93 people across Russia are subjected to various forms of criminal prosecution on suspicion of professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. 47 people (including 2 EU citizens) were taken into custody. 25 people (including 3 women) remain in the pre-trial detention center. 23 people are under house arrest. More than 35 people are under recognizance not to leave. Most face 6 to 10 years in prison.\nPunitive authorities in modern Russia consider any worship of Jehovah as participation in the activities of an \"extremist organization\" (with reference to the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to liquidate all 396 registered organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses), while the Russian government officially declares that the decision of the Supreme Court \"does not contain a restriction or prohibition to practice the above teachings individually.\" \"There is a contradiction between the declared position of the Government of the Russian Federation and law enforcement practice. This cannot but cause concern, since criminal prosecutions and arrests have become systemic,\" the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights said in a statement .\n","category":"eyewitnesses","date":"2018-11-19T16:30:24+03:00","duration":"2:51","image":{"jpg":"/news/2018/11/518/dzhankoy_ursu_0_hu_1c923e3073ba4c51.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2018/11/518/dzhankoy_ursu_0.jpg","webp":"/news/2018/11/518/dzhankoy_ursu_0_hu_337acac03a7a655d.webp","webp2x":"/news/2018/11/518/dzhankoy_ursu_0_hu_d6549084f3c55e90.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2018/11/518.html","regions":["crimea"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["video","elderly","siloviks-violence","deportation","ussr"],"title":"Crimea: the rehabilitated is again subjected to repression (video)","type":"video"},{"body":"78-year-old Alexander Petrovich Ursu, who was repressed for his faith and later recognized as an innocent victim, was pressed against the wall and fell to his knees, handcuffed. This happened on the evening of November 15, 2018 in the city of Dzhankoy (Crimea), where the FSB, with the support of riot police, carried out gross incursions into the homes of citizens who are suspected of professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. A criminal case under Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was initiated against a 46-year-old local resident Sergey Filatov. The arrests are not yet known, the handcuffs of Alexandr Ursu have been removed.\nThe Russian authorities in 2018 are repeating the tragic mistake made during the Stalinist period. Since the early 1930s, Alexandr Ursu's family has considered itself to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. In the 1940s, his father, uncle and grandfather were sent to labor camps because of their religion. In 1947, with a serious injury, but alive, only his father returned. \"When I was nine years old, our family and hundreds of other Witnesses from Moldavia were exiled to Siberia,\" Alexander Ursu said in his autobiography, \"On July 6, 1949, we were loaded into cattle cars, and we traveled non-stop for 12 days. Having covered more than six thousand kilometers, we arrived at the Lebyazhye station. The local authorities were already waiting for us there. We were divided into small groups and immediately settled in different places. For our group, a small empty school became home. We were exhausted and depressed.\" Later, Alexandru Ursu was repeatedly subjected to various forms of pressure from the state security agencies, including searches in his house. On May 21, 1991, Alexandr Ursu was rehabilitated in accordance with the Decree \"On additional measures to restore justice for the victims of repressions that took place in the period of the 30-40s and early 50s\". Certificate of rehabilitation No. 23 was issued to him on 17 June 1991.\nPunitive authorities in modern Russia consider any worship of Jehovah as participation in the activities of an \"extremist organization\" (with reference to the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to liquidate all 396 registered organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses), while the Russian government officially declares that the decision of the Supreme Court \"does not contain a restriction or prohibition to practice the above teachings individually.\" \"There is a contradiction between the declared position of the Government of the Russian Federation and law enforcement practice. This cannot but cause concern, since criminal prosecutions and arrests have become systemic,\" the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights said in a statement .\n","category":"siloviki","date":"2018-11-16T16:42:57+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2018/11/517/ursu_aleksandr6523_hu_24c79b751c8a428f.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2018/11/517/ursu_aleksandr6523.jpg","webp":"/news/2018/11/517/ursu_aleksandr6523_hu_98b1c69a897dd89d.webp","webp2x":"/news/2018/11/517/ursu_aleksandr6523_hu_c3a40c30185a4f08.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2018/11/517.html","regions":["crimea"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["elderly","siloviks-violence","deportation","ussr","new-case","282.2-1"],"title":"Crimea: A Believer, a Victim of Political Repression, Was Injured in a Force Operation","type":"news"},{"body":"A real estate complex worth about 2 billion rubles will be seized from a foreign organization, the Pennsylvania Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. On May 3, 2018, the St. Petersburg City Court upheld the decision of the lower court. The decision takes effect immediately.\n\"The inviolability of private property is considered the basis for confidence in the future,\" says Yaroslav Sivulsky of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses.\nWhat steps preceded this seizure of property? 1) Without any convincing argumentation , the courts recognized a number of publications of Jehovah's Witnesses as \"extremist\". 2) In 2017, after an epidemic of planting \"extremist\" materials in worship buildings, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized all 396 organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses registered in Russia as extremist and liquidated them. (3) The lower court, on the basis of this decision, decided to transfer this property to the ownership of the state, since until 2000 it belonged to one of the liquidated organizations. To that end, the court declared the 17-year-old deal to transfer it to the Watch Tower Society null and void.\nIt is noteworthy that on April 20, 2016, more than a year before the claim of the Ministry of Justice on the liquidation of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses, an intriguing entry appeared in the \"Unified State Register of Real Estate Rights\" (EGRP) relating to this liturgical complex: \"A decision has been made to seize the property for state or municipal needs.\" Rosreestr explained this record to believers as a \"technical error.\"\nSuch a large-scale seizure of property in Russia, which was used for religious purposes, is comparable only with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars \"On the separation of Church and State\" of 1918, by which religious organizations were deprived of property. However, unlike the events of 100 years ago, the buildings of Jehovah's Witnesses were purchased and built without state support, solely on voluntary donations and by the believers themselves.\nAll options for further appealing this decision, both nationally and internationally, will be considered by the Watch Tower Society after reviewing the full text of the appellate ruling. In addition, the European Court of Human Rights is considering as a matter of priority the complaint \"Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and Kalin v. Russian Federation\", filed in connection with the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, which, in turn, served as the basis for today's decision.\n","category":"property","date":"2018-05-03T14:25:29+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2018/05/309/img_32224675_hu_8731343b135c3276.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2018/05/309/img_32224675.jpg","webp":"/news/2018/05/309/img_32224675_hu_fbbfeeef0b75eb6.webp","webp2x":"/news/2018/05/309/img_32224675_hu_b884fb70fbc4d466.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2018/05/309.html","regions":["stpetersburg"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["appeal","buildings-seizure","belongings-arrest","ussr"],"title":"The Court of Appeal legalized the seizure of property in the village of Solnechnoye, St. Petersburg","type":"news"},{"body":"The text of the explanations made on April 7, 2017 at the Supreme Court of Russia by Vasily Kalin from the steering committee of the \"Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia\".\nDear court! I am not a lawyer, so I will try to speak in simple words, simple expressions, so that it is clear to you, dear court, as well as to a respected representative of the Ministry of Justice.\nOn March 15, 2017, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation appealed to you with a request to recognize as extremist and liquidate all religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia at once. And there are many of them - this is one centralized organization and 395 local religious organizations throughout Russia. Is it legal? I don't think so. The Administrative Center does not agree with the statements of the Ministry of Justice, since it has not carried out extremist activities and is not currently carrying it out.\nOver the 26 years of the organization's official existence as a legal entity, the Administrative Center has never been held accountable for violating any provisions of the Federal Law \"On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations\", as well as the Federal Law \"On Countering Extremist Activity\". If so, then I, the chairman of the governing body, have a question: if we were good for 26 years and did not commit crimes, then I wonder on what day we became extremists? What has the Administrative Center done that is being demanded to be liquidated? Personally, I did not find an answer to this question in the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice.\nThe Ministry of Justice claims that the lawsuit was filed in order to strengthen the rule of law and prevent violations of state and public security, protect human and civil rights and freedoms, as well as to counter extremist activities. Where are these grim facts? I do not argue that the fight against extremism is indeed an important and noble goal. But the fact is that by satisfying the claims of the Ministry of Justice, the state will achieve not the stated goals, but the exact opposite - violation of the rights of believers, trampling on their freedom and returning to the dark past. The supremacy of the law provided for in Article 4 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation will be violated, and significant harm will be caused to the legitimate rights, freedoms and interests of more than 175,000 citizens of the Russian Federation - men, women and children.\nIn addition, meeting the demands of the Ministry of Justice will further intensify the repression of Jehovah's Witnesses on religious grounds, which has already begun. In fact, the court's decision to liquidate all religious associations of Jehovah's Witnesses will be interpreted by law enforcement officials as a nationwide ban on the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in declaring their peaceful worship criminal. As a result, tens of thousands of believers will be illegally persecuted just for getting together, reading the Bible, and we have already gone through this.\nAlready now, even before the Supreme Court makes a decision on this case, on the basis of the order of the Ministry of Justice of Russia dated March 15, 2017, the activities of the Administrative Center have been suspended, the organization's bank accounts have been blocked, and therefore the Management Center is unable not only to continue normal economic activities, but also to pay the state fee. The administrative center has already been included by the Ministry of Justice in the list of terrorists and extremists and is put on a par with organizations such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban movement, Aum Shinrikyo and many others.\nWe heard a representative of the Ministry of Justice, speaking without batting an eyelid, say that Jehovah's Witnesses are extremists, i.e. criminals, and this is in the lawsuit. The very fact that the lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Justice was granted will be the embodiment of extremism, blatant injustice and a return to the times of the Soviet Union, when thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses were brutally persecuted, placed in the Gulag and exiled forever to Siberia just because they professed the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. In modern history, no state of law has allowed itself such actions in relation to its people. On the contrary, Jehovah's Witnesses legally operate in more than 240 countries and territories, including all countries in Europe, and have a worldwide reputation for respect, peace, and law-abiding people.\nDear court! You have the power and legal basis to make a decision in this administrative case that will show that the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia on the basis of accusations of extremism must be stopped. There can be only one fair, honest and legal decision in this case - the refusal to satisfy the claim of the Ministry of Justice.\nJehovah's Witnesses were never extremists, and they are not today. Their beliefs contradict the manifestations of hatred, enmity and violence. These are peaceful, conscientious, respectable members of society and the state who follow the biblical commandments: to make prayers, petitions and supplications, thanksgiving for all people, for kings, for all rulers, so that we may lead a quiet, serene life, in all piety and purity. This is a quote from the Bible, the apostle Paul's letter to Timothy, chapter 2, verses 1-2. Also in the Bible, in the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, chapter 13, verse 1, it is said that every soul should be subject to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God. This means that Jehovah's Witnesses, in obeying this biblical instruction, show deep respect for authority and show respect and love for people. They are not extremists.\nThe history of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia goes back more than 100 years. And during this time, there has not been a single case when Jehovah's Witnesses called for violence, overthrowing the government, or otherwise threatening the security of the state. On the contrary, Jehovah's Witnesses, both in the past and now, often receive praise from the state for their good deeds for the benefit of society. Representatives of the authorities presented their religious associations with written letters and gratitude, there are many of them here, and something was provided in court.\nThe Christian doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is based solely on the Bible and does not contain the signs of extremism listed in the Federal Law of the Russian Federation \"On Countering Extremist Activities\", and does not call for extremist actions. The basic creed notes that believers treat others as they would have them treated. This is a quote from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verse 12. And Jehovah's Witnesses have always adhered to and still adhere to the principles of peacefulness. And the spread of faith is due to the desire to do the will of God, which is also recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verse 14, and the desire to help other people draw closer to God, to find hope for eternal life in paradise on earth. These documents were provided to the court.\nDuring the Soviet Union, when the state waged an irreconcilable struggle against dissent, Jehovah's Witnesses, along with believers of other faiths, were severely persecuted simply because they read the Bible, printed publications based on it, and professed their biblical views. In 1951, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses, peaceful citizens of the USSR, were exiled forever to Siberia. All the property of believers, their houses, belongings, livestock were confiscated. Later, hundreds of believers were convicted on charges of anti-Soviet activities and served their sentences in the Gulag system. The question is: for what? Only because they professed the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses and followed the biblical commandments.\nMy family and I also went through political repression for the same thing we are accused of today, but then we were rehabilitated. I was born on February 5, 1947 in Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk region. And on April 8, 1951, at the age of 4, together with our family - parents, grandmother, two older brothers and a sister - we were exiled to Siberia forever, to the Irkutsk region. We were transported in dirty freight cars for more than 20 days in inhuman conditions, in which cattle are usually transported. There were men, women, children, no toilet, no food, no conditions.\nOur exile to Siberia was connected with Stalin's decree and concerned people who profess the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. My parents were Jehovah's Witnesses. But one thing that was interesting to me was that my parents, as well as any of Jehovah's Witnesses who were to be expelled at that time, could have avoided this fate. It was only a small thing to do - to renounce the faith, to sign a document of renunciation. Interestingly, if you are a criminal and therefore you are subject to severe punishment, it is unlikely that anyone will have such an opportunity. But this opportunity was given to Jehovah's Witnesses only because they were not criminals. Clearly, Jehovah's Witnesses also did not commit any crime at that time, but were persecuted.\nThe state simply did not like the position of these people, which was very different from the ideology of building a godless society, which was alien to people. The exiled Jehovah's Witnesses in Siberia also continued to study the Bible and tell others about what was written in it. Despite the further terror and persecution and slander against these innocent people, Jehovah's Witnesses did not lose their deep convictions, they did not become embittered, they did not rebel against their oppressors. They continued to be honest, highly moral, decent people, showing love and respect for all the people around them, regardless of their beliefs, nation and origin. Why? Because they held God's law very high to \"love your neighbor as yourself.\"\nToday, nothing has changed. Yes, my childhood was spent more in poverty, hunger, humiliation, ridicule, because I grew up as a child of enemies of the people. How would you react, dear court, if a five-year-old child asks for bread from his mother, and the mother turns away so that the child does not see her tears, and says: \"Son, be patient a little, we will soon have a lot of bread.\" And this kid who asked for a piece of bread... I thought for a long time, how much bread will we have? Probably a whole bun! That crying woman was my mother. That kid begging for a piece of bread was me.\nThe question arises: for what? Why were these people in such poverty? For what crime were these children deprived of the joy of their childhood, a simple piece of bread and a free life? And, of course, later, as a young man, it was very difficult for me to compare that reality with the humiliating propaganda of that time about a happy childhood given to us by a great country. And what about the lies that were generously showered on these innocent honest workers? During my school years, I sometimes felt like an outcast.\nThe judge asks to speak closer to the essence of the case.\nKalin: Dear court, I did not want to advertise my family and myself personally. I wanted to show by the example of the past that we are returning to the same thing today. Because today what is already happening, even the fact that the lawsuit has been filed with the Supreme Court to liquidate Jehovah's Witnesses, we are already seeing a lot of what is happening today. Today, too, many people, or some people, are already prejudiced against Jehovah's Witnesses, there is already persecution and ridicule of schoolchildren at school, they are already collecting lists of Jehovah's Witnesses in some places, etc. Therefore, if today we follow the path that the Ministry of Justice offers us – to liquidate the Administrative Center, to liquidate all local religious organizations on the territory of Russia, the same thing will happen.\nI really liked the words of one official who told me: \"Vasily Mikhailovich, a legal entity can be liquidated, but faith is not.\" What does the Ministry of Justice think, having fulfilled their desire to liquidate Jehovah's Witnesses, will we really abandon our actions, our faith? Never. But what will happen? Exactly what has already happened in Russia, such as the trial in Taganrog. People have already received official imprisonment, people have already been convicted, and their families have also suffered a lot of persecution. Therefore, looking at the whole situation that is happening today, of course, it is very unfortunate that we are returning to that state.\nFor me, for example, the question is so incomprehensible: I received a certificate as a victim of political repression. I was once a criminal, just like my parents. Then this charge was dropped from me. And what kind of certificate does the Department of Justice want to provide to these people, whom they call extremists? What deeds, what actions have Jehovah's Witnesses carried out, that they are equated with those who commit crimes today?\nTherefore, I believe that the lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Justice is brought back and demands that they be deprived of the right to jointly profess the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses in God. Otherwise, we face harsh prison terms and possibly subsequent complaints. If during the Soviet years Jehovah's Witnesses were tried on the basis of a vague article of the Criminal Code on anti-Soviet activities, today the basis for prosecution (is) the same vague and vague article of anti-extremist legislation. However, as I have already said, Jehovah's Witnesses have never posed a threat to the state, either in the past or now, and they will not provide such a threat in the future.\nAddressing the representative of the Ministry of Justice, I want to remind you that the demand to liquidate the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia will outlaw those people who wish you and all citizens of Russia peace, happiness and love. I hope that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation will not allow the Ministry of Justice to bring back those shameful pages of history that I and many other Russians of my age had to go through. Therefore, I ask you to refuse the claim of the Ministry of Justice. Thank you very much.\n","category":"org","date":"2017-04-11T10:13:54+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2017/04/141/img_0611_2_hu_a12ff407b39df5a2.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2017/04/141/img_0611_2.jpg","webp":"/news/2017/04/141/img_0611_2_hu_79e5f12bfa6152a7.webp","webp2x":"/news/2017/04/141/img_0611_2_hu_8dcd9527e949865a.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2017/04/141.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["supreme-court","mro","administrative-center","rosfinmonitoring","ussr","courtroom","deportation"],"title":"Vasily Kalin: \"I received a certificate of a victim of political repression. And what kind of certificate does the Ministry of Justice want to provide me today?\"","type":"news"},{"body":"The unprecedented news was the reason for this appeal. The Ministry of Justice set out to shut down and criminalize an entire religion, Jehovah's Witnesses. A lawsuit has already been filed with the Supreme Court of Russia. They are asking for the death penalty for all three hundred and ninety-six of our organizations, including our Administrative Center! We are talking about liquidation and recognition of them as extremist.\nA special clause is to confiscate all their houses of worship and other property from believers! Moreover, the Ministry of Justice wants to do this immediately.\nFor the 175,000 followers of our religion, this may be the most troubling period of their lives.\nI remember an April night in 1951. Then eight and a half thousand believers of our religion, that is, almost ALL, were deprived of their homes, loaded into wagons and taken to Siberia for eternal settlement. The lives of thousands of believers were irreparably broken. Hundreds and hundreds passed through the camps. But they did not renounce their faith. And they didn't harden. They always remained peaceful people, as Christ commanded. Subsequently, the state recognized us as victims of political repression. And how blasphemous it is for us to find ourselves in the position of dangerous criminals again!\nIf the Ministry of Justice gets its way, believers will face up to 10 years in prison! Recently, after the liquidation of the registered community in Taganrog, 16 of our brothers and sisters in the faith were sentenced to heavy fines, and some even to 5-year suspended imprisonment just for reading the Bible together. A new charge can lead them to real terms.\nFor what? What are these people to blame for? That they seem to be \"wrongly\" studying the Bible? That they regard their faith as the only true one? Or are they guilty of not resorting to violence by following the Gospel commandment to \"sheath your sword\"?\nThe accusation of extremism against Jehovah's Witnesses is absurd and savagery.\nWe ask you, who can influence the course of events, to face the facts objectively and impartially.\nFinally, I recall the episode described in the Acts of the Apostles. Christians were tried on false accusations. One of the judges of the Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, said of them to his colleagues: \"Leave these people alone, let them go. If their purpose and their work are from men, it will perish of its own accord, but if it is from God, you will not destroy them. And how would it not turn out that you are struggling with God himself! (Acts 5:38, 39)\nVasily Kalin, Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.\n","category":"from-the-scene","date":"2017-03-21T13:28:27+03:00","duration":"3:10","image":{"jpg":"/news/2017/03/108/kalin_statement_hu_db3891107dc34ea0.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2017/03/108/kalin_statement.jpg","webp":"/news/2017/03/108/kalin_statement_hu_bc4b4e4be0cbaf2b.webp","webp2x":"/news/2017/03/108/kalin_statement_hu_c6001373cfb134d.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2017/03/108.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["administrative-center","mro","ussr"],"title":"Vasily Kalin's Urgent Video Message in Connection with the Lawsuit to Ban Jehovah's Witnesses","type":"video"},{"body":"Liquidate not only the Administrative Center, but also all 395 local religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses. Immediately confiscate all houses of worship belonging to these organizations. Recognize the Administrative Center as an extremist organization and prohibit its activities. This is sought by the Ministry of Justice, the body that determines religious policy in the country.\nThe believers learned about the plans of the Ministry of Justice in the office of the Supreme Court of Russia, having familiarized themselves with the text of the statement of claim. The court has already set a hearing date of April 5, 2017.\n\"If the Ministry of Justice gets its way, any of the 175,000 believers could face up to 10 years in prison simply for practicing their faith,\" says Vasily Kalin of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, \"Recently, after the liquidation of a registered community in Taganrog, 16 of our brothers and sisters in faith were sentenced to heavy fines, and some even to 5-year suspended imprisonment just for reading the Bible together. That was an illustration.\"\nIt is noteworthy that 66 years ago, also in April, the Stalinist government conducted an operation codenamed \"North\".\n\"I remember the April night of 1951,\" says Vasily Kalin, \"Then eight and a half thousand believers of our religion, that is, almost all, were deprived of their homes and taken to Siberia for eternal settlement. The lives of thousands of believers were irreparably broken. Hundreds and hundreds passed through the camps. But they did not renounce their faith. And they didn't harden. They always remained peaceful people, as Christ commanded. Subsequently, the state recognized us as victims of political repression. And how blasphemous it is for us to find ourselves in the position of dangerous criminals again!\n","category":"org","date":"2017-03-20T19:12:18+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2017/03/107/170316_solnechnoe_2405_hu_4dfef4cf69bee559.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2017/03/107/170316_solnechnoe_2405.jpg","webp":"/news/2017/03/107/170316_solnechnoe_2405_hu_56cfff11a8110362.webp","webp2x":"/news/2017/03/107/170316_solnechnoe_2405_hu_225d547f117a5726.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2017/03/107.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["administrative-center","mro","ussr"],"title":"Unprecedented news: The Ministry of Justice of Russia is seeking an immediate and total ban on a major religion","type":"news"},{"body":"On November 14, 2016, in Nevinnomyssk (Stavropol Territory), Mikhail Savitsky, an elder of Jehovah's Witnesses, who a quarter of a century ago put his signature on a document submitted for registration of the \"Religious Organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR,\" died. This historic document was signed on March 27, 1991 in the Ministry of Justice of the RSFSR after many decades of religious persecution.\nMikhail Savitsky became a Jehovah's Witness in 1949, and two years later, at the age of 18, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison because of his faith. In April 1951, while he was imprisoned in Lviv, his family was exiled to Siberia along with thousands of other Jehovah's Witnesses. After his early release, he and his extended family were forced to change their place of residence many times. Mikhail Vasilyevich Savitsky died at the age of 84.\n","category":"bio","date":"2016-11-15T16:32:54+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2016/11/60/savitskiy-02_hu_59ed05783a56f48d.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2016/11/60/savitskiy-02.jpg","webp":"/news/2016/11/60/savitskiy-02_hu_fcbb5222dca36a83.webp","webp2x":"/news/2016/11/60/savitskiy-02_hu_fbb23def9c27ad3f.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2016/11/60.html","regions":["stavropol"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["ussr","liberty-deprivation","deportation"],"title":"One of Jehovah's Witnesses who achieved recognition of this religion in the USSR passed away","type":"news"},{"body":"On October 24, 2016, the Irkutsk Regional Library hosted a conference on the topic \"Theory and Practice of Implementing Ethno-Confessional Relations in the Irkutsk Region\".\nRelations based on mutual respect have developed in the region with Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious organizations, said Alexei Mishin, a representative of the regional government, in his plenary speech. Referring to Jehovah's Witnesses, he said that about 5,500 of them live in the Baikal region, and they appeared in the region 65 years ago during the operation of mass forced resettlement of believers of this religion from the western regions of the USSR.\nIt can be added that for many years in different cities of the Irkutsk region, Jehovah's Witnesses have been actively helping in landscaping. The patronage assistance that individual believers provided to the orphanage and the baby home in the city of Usolye-Sibirskoye did not go unnoticed.\n","category":"opinions","date":"2016-10-27T17:02:17+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2016/10/51/irkutsk-01_hu_6bedabe0279cd49d.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2016/10/51/irkutsk-01.jpg","webp":"/news/2016/10/51/irkutsk-01_hu_47ebb140d6674211.webp","webp2x":"/news/2016/10/51/irkutsk-01_hu_6cda78f583e55970.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2016/10/51.html","regions":["irkutsk"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["ussr"],"title":"At a conference in Irkutsk, mention was made of the benevolent attitude of the authorities towards Jehovah's Witnesses","type":"news"}]