Early on May 18, 150 Russian police officers conducted raids on 20 houses belonging to Jehovah’s witnesses in Birobidzhan, the capital of Russia’s far eastern Jewish Autonomous Republic.
The raids came a week after the European Union delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, condemned escalating Russian harassment against the religious minority in a statement to the security group.
The Birobidzhan raids were code-named “Judgement Day,” spokespeople for Jehovah’s Witnesses wrote in a statement. Police officers searched homes across the city, confiscating money, bank cards, and electronic devices belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A day earlier, on May 16, police officers carried out “mass searches” in the Orenburg Region of Russia, searching 18 Witnesses and detaining three, the statement asserted.
Thomas Rymer, spokesman for the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, affirmed that the attacks, as well as the EU delegation’s statement, had gotten the OSCE’s attention.
“It’s something that’s been flagged here. What will happen, I’m not sure. That’s an answer I’m waiting for as well.”
The European Union delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, condemned escalating Russian harassment against individual Jehovah’s Witnesses on May 10, highlighting criminal detentions and widespread property seizures.
The delegation’s statement was published over a year after Russia liquidated all legal entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country on the grounds of ‘extremism.’
“Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, like all other individuals, must be able to peacefully enjoy freedom of religion or belief as well as freedom of assembly without discrimination,” said the statement, submitted to the OSCE Permanent Council.
Russia banned the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as 395 local legal entities belonging to Witnesses, on April 20, 2017, after a supreme court decision declared the religion an “extremist organization.”
Since then, Russian authorities have launched nine criminal investigations against Jehovah’s Witnesses, put five Jehovah’s Witnesses in detention, and seized 90-100 properties belonging to the religious community, said the EU delegation’s statement.
“The Russian government claimed… individual Witnesses would be free to practice their faith. However, the government’s claim is inconsistent with its actions,” it said.
While OSCE is a security organization, human rights “are a direct matter of concern to all states participating,” Thomas Rymer, spokesman for the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, told the Kyiv Post.
“Situations in one state spill across borders,” he said.
That said, Rymer was unsure if the OSCE would take any action in response to the EU delegation’s statement.
“It’s our mandate to raise issues like this with participating governments,” he said, but could not comment on whether OSCE planned to raise the situation of Jehovah’s Witnesses with Russian authorities.
Representatives of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ukraine said some Witnesses in Russia were moving to Ukraine, fearing that they would be unable to practice their faith in Russia.
“We know of some cases, from personal conversations,” Ivan Riher, a public information desk representative at the Religious Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post.
“We understand negative circumstances might make it hard for people to stay there and worship.”
However, the center was not organizing any campaigns to move Jehovah’s Witnesses out of Russia, he said.
“There’s a long history of Jehovah’s Witnesses not moving from places where they were stopped from worshipping,” he said, citing persecution of Witnesses in Nazi Germany.
“It’s been historically proved that they were worshipping their God to the extent they could in their circumstances.”
As for the charges of ‘extremism,’ Riher said Jehovah’s Witnesses disagreed.
“It’s funny to call someone an extremist if they refuse to take up arms.”
Back in 2016, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin signed a law that severely restricted the freedoms of those wanting to proselytize including missionary work and evangelism.
