Religious freedom takes Apec route

BAGUIO CITY—The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting which the Philippines hosted last week became the venue for Filipino members of the religious organization Jehovah’s Witnesses to protest the harassment of organization members in Russia.

In a meeting at the Russian embassy, leaders of the organization asked Russian officials to remove publications of the Jehovah’s Witnesses from the Russian government’s “list of extremist materials,” according to Dean Jacek, spokesperson of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the legal and corporate arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

They asked embassy officials to relay their appeal to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev who joined the Apec leaders’ meet in Manila.
Jacek said the leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses also urged Russia to restore free access to their official website, www.jw.org, which “provides spiritual guidance and comfort to the public.”

In Russia, owning or promoting reading materials that are considered “extremist” is punishable under the federal law on counteracting extremist activity, which was originally intended to fight terrorism.
This was after Russian courts classified many Jehovah’s Witnesses books as “extremist” in September 2009.

Crime in Russia

On July 21, 2015, the Russian Federation made the promotion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization website inside Russian territory a criminal offense.

The website is available in more than 700 languages, including Filipino. It contains videos and Biblical literature that are meant to foster strong family ties and to promote peaceful relationships with neighbors, Jacek said.

“We are concerned because any Filipino, who lives in or who goes to Russia, cannot access the materials because the website has been added to the federal list of extremist materials, banning the website throughout Russia. And because many of our materials, even as simple as ‘My Book of Bible Stories,’ are banned, just having them subjects one to arrest,” he said.

There are 200,000 active members of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Philippines, Jacek said.

‘Extremist’ acts

Apart from owning and promoting materials with alleged extremist content, people in Russia can also be charged criminally if found performing or engaging in activities that are considered “extremist,” he said.

On July 30, 2014, a local court in Russia convicted and sentenced seven of 16 members of Jehovah’s Witnesses for attending and organizing religious meetings.

Jacek said this verdict had set a “dangerous precedent” in restricting religious freedom for Jehovah’s Witnesses members in Russia.
He said the Jehovah’s Witnesses had submitted 28 applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to seek redress. Since 22 of these applications involve human rights violations, the ECHR is reviewing them together.

“We hope that Russia will abide by international standards as expressed in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Resolution No. 1896, which has called on Russian authorities to ‘refrain from applying the law on extremist activities against all religious communities, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Jacek said.
Gobleth Moulic, Inquirer Northern Luzon