Supreme Court bans Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia

Russia’s Supreme Court has banned Jehovah’s
Witnesses from the country.
The court made the decision after describing
the group as an extremist organization.
Four former members of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses had told a Russia’s Supreme Court
how they were brainwashed by the church
against receiving higher education or starting a
family.
A wtiness, Natalia Koretskaya from St.
Petersburg had told the court she had been a
member of that organisation from 1995 to 2009
and had realised over this period that the
organisation’s members “were living under full
and total control of the [Jehovah’s Witnesses]
Administrative Centre.”
“The heads of the Jehovah’s Witnesses formally
watch canonical compliance with the norms but
in real fact the talk is about total control of an
individual’s personal life – his intimate life,
education and work,” Koretskaya told the court.
Koretskaya said she had been expelled from the
religious organisation and its members had been
banned to communicate with her after she
started close but officially unregistered
relationship with a man.
“Therefore, a person turns out to be expelled
into the outer world, in which he has already
forgotten how to live over the years of his stay
in the organisation,” Koretskaya added.
Justice Yury Ivanenko in his verdict on Thursday,
said Russia had decided to close down “the
administrative centre of Jehovah’s Witnesses
and the local organisations in its fold and turn
their property over to the Russian Federation.”