Russian Supreme court has banned Jehovah Witnesses

- Russian Supreme court has banned Jehovah Witnesses.
- The Court labeled them as extremists.
- The Christian body however vowed to legally fight the
ban.

Russia’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Jehovah’s
Witnesses was an “extremist” organisation and must hand
over all its property to the state, Russian news agencies
reported.

Interfax News Agency quoted Sergei Cherepanov, a
Jehovah’s Witnesses representative, as saying that the group
will appeal the decision in the European Court of Human
Rights.

Russian authorities have put several of the group’s
publications on a list of banned extremist literature and
prosecutors have long cast it as an organisation that
destroys families, fosters hatred and threatens lives.

The group, a United States-based non-trinitarian Christian
denomination known for its door-to-door preaching and
rejection of military service and blood transfusions, says this
description is false.

But Russia has been most outspoken in portraying it as an
extremist cult.
Its Russian branch, based near St Petersburg, has regularly
rejected this allegation.

It has said a ban would directly affect around 400 of its
groups and have an impact on all of its 2,277 religious
groups in Russia, where it says it has 175,000 followers.