Five Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested today for extremism. A charge which the Jehovah’s witnesses argue is discrimination.
The Jehovah’s witnesses were arrested for spreading propaganda, which has been illegal in Russia as of 2017.
Spokespersons for the Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that they cannot be persecuted for the material they were giving out. Russian police argue it was not due to the nature of the material being handed out, but the live grenades and landmine they found in their homes along with the leaflets.
We attended a press conference addressing the issues, but it was all in Russian and we don’t have a translator yet.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a denomination of Christianity; there are about 8 million in the world. Jehovah’s Witnesses generally try to convert people by knocking on doors. This makes every unknown knock on your door slightly terrifying. What religion does that? Sikhism doesn’t bring it to your door.
They are most famous for their belief that people should not; have birthdays, celebrate in anyway, receive blood transfusions (I mean they’re basically anti-vampires), or their two-witnesses rule for sexual assault with no Witness allowed to be one of the witnesses. Just in case you all forgot, it’s 2018, not the 1870s.
