By Victoria Arnold | Forum 18 More than 100 Jehovah’s Witnesses are now the subjects of criminal “extremism” cases in over a third of Russia’s regions. If brought to court and convicted, they could face up to 10 ... Full Article

By Marc Bennetts | Religion News Service MOSCOW (RNS) — A Russian court has sentenced a Danish member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to six years on extremism charges in a case that has rekindled memories of the Soviet-era persecution of ... Full Article

By Andrew Osborn | Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court on Wednesday found a Danish adherent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses guilty of organizing a banned extremist group and jailed him for six years in a case critics condemn as ... Full Article

By The Washington Post More than 600 days have passed since Russian police in Orel, south of Moscow, arrested Dennis Christensen, a Danish national and self-employed carpenter and builder who was active in the local Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. ... Full Article

By Andrew Osborn | Reuters ORYOL, Russia (Reuters) – The first Jehovah’s Witness detained for extremism in Russia has likened the authorities’ behavior to that of Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union ahead of a verdict in his trial. Armed ... Full Article

MP David Anderson provides a December 2018 update on freedom of religion or belief in Russia: Last May, the US Mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reported that “raids on homes and places of worship, ... Full Article

By Felix Corley | Forum 18 The Supreme Court of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic banned Jehovah’s Witnesses on 26 September, a decision that cannot be challenged. Jehovah’s Witness activity “in any form” ... Full Article

By Cristina Maza | Newsweek Jehovah’s Witnesses who face persecution in Russia are fleeing to nearby Finland, where they are allowed to worship freely, according to the religious group’s representatives. There are nearly 300 Jehovah’s ... Full Article

By Andrew Higgins | The New York Times TURKU, Finland — Sergey Avilkin, one of the hundreds of Russians now sheltering in Finland to avoid arrest as “extremists” in their home country, has no interest in politics or politicians and says ... Full Article

Click here to view the PDF version My office has prepared an update on the state of freedom of religion or belief in Russia. Please find a link to the report below. Thank you for your engagement with issues of religious freedom. David Anderson, ... Full Article

By Human Rights Watch (Moscow) – Russian authorities should drop the charges against a Jehovah’s Witness adherent for practicing his faith and release him immediately, Human Rights Watch said today. On April 3, 2018, a criminal court in Orel ... Full Article

By World Watch Monitor A new law on “education to patriotism” set to be introduced in Russia on New Year’s Day is a further sign of Russia distancing itself from the West, but is not necessarily a sign of President Vladimir Putin favouring ... Full Article

By Victoria Arnold | Forum 18 A court in Leningrad Region has outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Bible as “extremist”. The court imposed the ban despite the Extremism Law’s prohibition on such bans in ... Full Article

By Felix Corley | Forum 18 One year on from the introduction of penalties in Russia for ill-defined “missionary activity” – which the Russian authorities also impose in Crimea, which they occupied in March 2014 – Forum 18 found ... Full Article

By Lauren Markoe | Religion News Service (RNS) Teachers have humiliated Jehovah’s Witness children in front of their classmates. Arsonists have burned Witnesses’ homes. Security forces have raided their meeting halls. Since the Russian ... Full Article

By Lauren Markoe | Religion News Service (RNS) Teachers have humiliated Jehovah’s Witness children in front of their classmates. Arsonists have burned Witnesses’ homes. Security forces have raided their meeting halls. Since the Russian ... Full Article

By Pete Baumgartner | RadioFreeEurope, RadioLiberty A U.S. government commission on religious freedom is recommending that Russia be designated as a “country of particular concern” (CPC), putting it in a group of the world’s ... Full Article

By Andrew Higgins | The New York Times MOSCOW — Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination that rejects violence, an extremist organization, banning the group from operating on Russian ... Full Article

By The Associated Press State news agency RIA Novosti says Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld the decision of the city court in Birobidzhan to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a decision that comes amid proceedings on a Justice Ministry ... Full Article

By Human Rights Without Frontiers More and more congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia are being searched by police for banned religious literature, usually magazines and booklets for their spiritual edification. These are typically ... Full Article