Why Is Putin Afraid of
Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Since they were labeled an extremist group in 2017,
more than 400 have been charged or convicted.
| MARCH 26, 2021, 2:26 PM
A group of Jehovah's Witnesses stand on a street corner in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, on Aug. 16, 2019. SPENCER
PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
On
Wednesday, authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea announced that they had
arrested a 30-year-old man suspected of promoting an organization that had been
banned and deemed extremist in Russia. The day before that, prosecutors in the
Russian city of Smolensk asked a court to sentence three adherents of the same
group to up to nine years behind bars. On Monday, in the Crimean port of
Sevastopol, prosecutors sought seven years for a man charged with “organizing
the activities of an extremist group.”
So who are
these scary extremists? Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination with an
estimated 175,000 followers in Russia. In 2017, Russia’s Supreme Court declared
the group an extremist organization, lumping its non-violent adherents into the
same category as neo-Nazis and members of al Qaeda.
Since then,
Russian law enforcement has raided the homes of more than 1,300 worshippers and
over 400 have been either charged or convicted of extremism in a brutal
crackdown which has swept up followers aged 19 to 90. The European Association
of Jehovah’s Witnesses estimates that between 5,000 to 10,000 of
its members have fled Russia since the ban came into force.
Why is this happening?
As is often
the case with authoritarian states, it’s hard to tell exactly what has prompted
the crackdown—and there’s likely more than one reason. Jehovah’s Witnesses
themselves are bewildered.
“If it
wasn’t so serious, it would be a joke. It’s absurd. Jehovah’s Witnesses have
been anything but extremist, and we’re certainly not dangerous or violent,”
said Jarrod Lopes, a spokesperson for the group’s headquarters in the
United States. Jehovah’s Witnesses remain politically neutral for religious
reasons and do not vote, run for office, or protest. That might have spared
them the arrests and harassment levied against protesters and opposition
politicians in Russia, but their apolitical stance might have singled them out
in other ways. “That looks very suspicious to our authorities,” said Alexander
Verkhovsky, director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and
Analysis, which tracks discrimination and misuse of Russia’s extremism
laws.
After
Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 amid mass street protests
against allegedly rigged elections, the Kremlin made a conscious effort to
foment nationalism—and support for Putin. This new wave of patriotism was built
around support for the armed forces and the Russian Orthodox Church, which is
closely interwoven with the Russian state. All of this made Jehovah’s
Witnesses—who refuse military conscription based on their faith—all the more
conspicuous.
“I think it
makes states that want a lot of control uncomfortable, because they can’t
really control this community,” said Emily Baran, a history professor at Middle
Tennessee State University.
And then
there’s the American element. Putin dialed up hostility to the West, and in
particular the United States, which he accused of fomenting the protests
against him. Civil society organizations and human rights groups which received
foreign funding were subject to invasive and debilitating new rules under a law
on foreign agents passed shortly after Putin returned to power in 2012. While
religious groups were exempt from the law, Jehovah’s witnesses
ties to the United States—where the group developed in the late 19th century
and where its headquarters remain—likely drew further scrutiny from the Russian
authorities. Still, Verkhovsky noted, Jehovah’s Witnesses are experiencing a
much harsher crackdown than other U.S-tied religious groups, such as
Seventh-Day Adventists and Pentacostals.
Isn’t this just part of Russia’s broader
crackdown?
Yes and no.
Russia has become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, and the country’s
vague and expansive extremism laws are one of many tools that have been used to
stifle dissenting voices. Journalists, activists, and social media users have
been arrested and imprisoned for questioning
the annexation of Crimea or Russia’s involvement in the conflict in Syria. “The
Witnesses are just one piece of that larger picture in which Russia is not
drawing a huge distinction between al Qaeda, a Jehovah’s Witness and a
20-something on the internet,” said Baran.
But what is
distinct about the assault on the Jehovah’s Witnesses is its ferocity and
persistence. The group’s Russian website is updated almost daily with news of
new raids, arrests, and convictions. A remarkable amount of resources,
including wiretapping and extensive surveillance, has been used in the hopes of
catching someone in the act of discussing their faith or the Bible with another
person, acts which are deemed extremist under the Russian law. “I think the
state legitimately does see them as a threat,” said Baran.
Suspicion of
Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia dates back to the Soviet Union, when the group
was outlawed and repeatedly maligned in the press, which
portrayed them as fanatics and accused them of being criminals, con men, and
Nazi collaborators. It created a stigma that was never undone. April 1 marks
the 70th anniversary of the deportation of thousands of Soviet Jehovah’s
Witnesses to Siberia during Stalin’s rule.
“I think
that some conspiracy theory appeared somewhere inside the governmental
structures regarding Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Verkhovsky said. “And we cannot even
discuss it in public because these theories are not presented to the public.”
What’s the response?
Western
governments and international institutions have condemned Russia’s crackdown.
In February, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Ned Price described the two-year penal colony
sentence for 69-year-old stroke victim Valentina Baranovskaya as “particularly
cruel” and urged Russia to lift its ban on the religion. In July, EU member
states and six other members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe called on Russia to uphold its
obligations to allow freedom of religion and expression, as guaranteed by the
Russian constitution.
But while
governments and human rights groups have kept close tabs on the targeting of
Jehovah’s Witnesses, it has not received the same degree of public attention
either in Russia or abroad as other political repressions.
“Because
they are a bit of a unique religion, they’re not a group that engages in a lot
of interdenominational activities, they don’t have as many natural allies who
can help kind of provide a larger platform than themselves,” said Baran, who
noted that the community had faced descrimination in almost every country where
they have a presence.
“It’s easier
to target them for a ban because you’re not going to get a lot of pushback
about that, compared to other religious groups,” said Baran.
Correction, March 26, 2021: Jarrod
Lopes is a spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witness headquarters in the United
States. A previous version of this article misstated Lopes’s first name.
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