Table of Contents • High court fixes strict requirements on evangelism • New World Translation remains banned in Russia • A Proxy for the Kremlin: The Russian Orthodox Church • Property sell-offs, alternative service denials follow Jehovah's Witness ban • Orthodox sect-fighter riles Hindus • Russian law enforcement descends on Jehovah's Witnesses' property • Court sets deadline for trial of Danish Jehovah's Witness • Falsified "evidence" helped convictions? • Jehovah’s Witnesses appeal banning of Bible translation • Russia court authorises seizure of outlawed sect children • Oryol District Court extends the pretrial detention of Dennis Christensen for another three months • Misuse of anti-extremism in October 2017 • Supreme Court threatens parental rights of, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses • Muslim prisoner of conscience tortured • “Beware: Sects” campaign in the dock at the European Court • Controversial dissolution of the Russian Orthodox Free Church • Occupied S. Ossetia bans Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘extremist’ • Religious freedom in Russia: 28 members of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly sign a common declaration • FECRIS vice president stands behind the Orthodox Church against non- Orthodox minorities • Russian pastor flees religious persecution to seek asylum in Germany • Jehovah’s Witness Bible, Jewish, Christian, Muslim books banned • Danish Jehovah’s Witness loses in court again • After Jehovah’s Witnesses ban, Russia takes on Scientology with controversial arrests • Foreign Jehovah’s Witness kept in custody in Orel • Human Rights Without Frontiers (Brussels) and FOREF-Europe (Vienna) urge Russia to lift the ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses at the OSCE/ODIHR HDIM in Warsaw • Jehovah's Witnesses appeal Russian decision on declaring them extremist organization • Ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other peaceful religious movements denounced at the OSCE/ ODIHR HDIM in Warsaw • Ban of Muslim movement Tabligh Jamaat Human Rights Without Frontiers FoRB Newsletter | Russia • Ban of Said Nursi’s writings and prosecution of his readers • UN Committee criticizes Russia for rights violations • International community of human rights defenders v. Russian state- appointed ‘experts’ • Russian court bans the Bible of Jehovah’s Witnesses • Russian « religious experts » hired by a court against Jehovah’s Witnesses have no academic credentials • Religious cleansing going on at full speed • Court extends detention for members of St. Petersburg Church of Scientology • International response to Russia’s Supreme Court decision against Jehovah’s Witnesses • A complaint in Strasbourg against Russia about the right to share one’s beliefs • The vice-president of FECRIS, the antisect organization funded by the French government, supports the ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses • Misuse of the anti-extremist legislation against religious groups • EU statement on the upheld ban of activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia • ECHR confronts Russian anti-evangelism law • Case against the Bible of Jehovah’s Witnesses resumes Friday • Pre-trial detention of Danish citizen Dennis Christensen extended until late November • The book of a prominent 19th century rabbi labeled as extremist • Ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Some statements of support • Jehovah's Witnesses are not alone • Jehovah’s Witnesses banned after the Supreme Court rejects appeal • Jehovah’s Witnesses banned after they lose appeal • Mormonism’s Russia dilemma: How to grow a fledgling faith with missionaries who can’t do missionary work • Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses revive Soviet-Era house churches but with laptops and kindles • Changing administrative punishments for public events High court fixes strict requirements on evangelism Constitutional Court clarifies rules on labeling religious literature introduced by 'Yarovaya Law" by Attorney Sergei Chugunov Human Rights Without Frontiers FoRB Newsletter | Russia Religiia i Pravo (22.12.2017) - http://bit.ly/2D57p91 - Late last year a sensational event occurred when a court in the city of Vladivostok ordered the destruction of religious literature belonging to the Salvation Army, including 36 Bibles. Let me recount how events developed. The prosecutor's office of the Lenin district of Vladivostok conducted on 23 November 2016 an inspection of the activity of the Christian religious organization of the Salvation Army in Vladivostok. In the course of this inspection, religious literature that was discovered by the inspectors at the address of the religious organization was copied and photographed, specifically religious literature that was in the library on shelves in the pastor's office (the office of the head of the organization) including 36 copies of the Bible in the Synodal translation and also collections of religious songs in the worship hall (premises for conducting worship services). The aforesaid printed materials had not been produced by the Christian religious organization of the Salvation Army in Vladivostok and therefore they did not have identification labels with its denominational name. On the basis of the results of the inspection, the prosecutor's office opened a case of administrative violations of law against the Christian religious organization of the Salvation Army in Vladivostok based on part 3 of article 5.26 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations of Law and filed it for consideration in court. The organization was accused that it "in its missionary activity uses and distributes literature and printed materials without identifying labels of the religious organization." By order of a magistrate judge of judicial precinct No. 4 of the Lenin judicial district of Vladivostok, A.V. Badeev, of 20 December 2016, in the case of administrative violation of law No. 5-855/16, the Christian religious organization of the Salvation Army of Vladivostok was found guilty of committing the violation of law provided by part 3 article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law and was assigned an administrative penalty in the form of a fine of 30,000 rubles. The court also ordered the confiscation and destruction of the literature and printed materials enumerated in the court's order. The decision concerning destruction of the Bibles evoked such a great public resonance that the decision was appealed not only by the Salvation Army itself or the initiator of this case, the prosecutor's office. As a result, with a speed that is incredibly great for our legal system, in just ten days a reconsideration of the decision was conducted. By a decision of Judge I.N. Novozhilovaia of the Lenin district court of Vladivostok, of 30 December 2016, the order of the magistrate judge was changed: from the operative part of the order, the part about destruction of the confiscated items of the administrative violation of law was removed. However, the remainder of the magistrate judge's order stayed unchanged. The decisions in the case were appealed all the way to the Russian Supreme Court. But the higher courts did not find any grounds for changing them. Then attorneys of the Slavic Legal Center V.V. Riakhovsky and S.V. Chugunov filed an appeal in the interests of the Salvation Army in the Constitutional Court of the Russian federation on the incompatibility of the provisions of part 3 of article 17 of the federal law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations" and part 3 of article 5.26 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations of Law with article 28 and part 3 of article 55 of the constitution of the Russian federation. The reason for the appeal was that the indicated rules of the laws contain legal imprecision regarding the question of just which materials are subject to identification labeling: all materials that potentially may be distributed by a religious organization within the context of conducting missionary activity, or materials that are immediately being distributed in the context of missionary activity conducted at that moment for which the religious organization is being accused of committing violations of law. Several months later the appeal was reviewed by the Russian Constitutional Court and a decision was rendered regarding it. Since in this case a determination to refuse to accept Human Rights Without Frontiers FoRB Newsletter | Russia for review a religious appeal had been made, it could seem that no positive result would been achieved. However this was not true. This is a common practice in the operation of the Russian Constitutional Court, when a determination is issued to refuse to consider an appeal, that is, the court formally recognizes that the rules being challenged are in accordance with the constitution of the RF. But in this same determination the court gives an interpretation of the rules being challenged, that is, how these rules should be applied. This is what happened this time. In its determination of 7 December 2017, No. 2793-O the Russian Constitutional Court explained the following: "In the system of existing legislation, the concept 'identification labeling,' used in article 17 of the federal law 'On freedom of conscience and religious associations,' means the affixing in any form (printed, hand-written, or another form) of the full official name of said organization on any materials, both produced by it and also produced by other organizations, but used by it in conducting its missionary activity. In those cases where literature or printed, audio, and video materials are distributed by the religious organization in the context of missionary activity, but