SAMARA, November 13. /TASS/. Russia’s Supreme court has sustained the ruling of Samara's regional court on declaring the Jehovah's Witnesses from Samara an extremist organization.
On May 29, 2014, the regional court of Russia’s Samara ruled in favor of the prosecutor in the case against the Jehovah's Witnesses. The reason for its submission was the discovery of extremist materials that the organization had kept for mass distribution.
The literature included in the Federal list of extremist materials was seized from the premises of the community. As it was noted in the regional prosecutor’s office, last year the prosecutor warned members of the organization on prohibition of extremist activity.
{history:5080:'Read also':'right':'50'}The Prosecutor's office of Russia’s Tver region wants the organization’s website shut down
On August 7, 2013, the Central district court of Tver ruled in favor of the prosecution calling the website of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization extremist. The ground for the ruling was that the information on the website diminishes the rights of believers who are not members of the organization, and stirs up enmity between people on religious grounds.
January 22 the regional court of Tver has cancelled the decision of the court of first instance, that recognized it as extremist, and on May 7 the court didn’t satisfy the cassational appeal of the regional prosecutor’s office concerning the court’s decision to open the Jehovah Witnesses’ international site.
Jehovah's Witnesses' booklets declared extremist in Russia's Kurgan
On January 12 the Kurgan municipal court declared the Jehovah Witnesses’ booklets extremist literature. The booklets entitled «How to achieve happiness in life», «What is the people’s hope? », «How to develop close relations with God? », «What should we know about God and its sense? » were prohibited, the court's press-service said. TASS reported that this decision of court would also be appealed.