Why is it wrong to consider Jehovah’s Witnesses to be extremists?
The incitement of hatred towards people is alien to Jehovah’s Witnesses, because they follow the love-loving covenants of Jesus Christ. To attribute extremism to them is erroneous for several reasons.
1. The more than 100-year history of this religion proves the non-extremist nature of their views. Jehovah’s Witnesses never take up arms. In Germany, they at the cost of freedom and even their lives refused to serve in the units of the Wehrmacht. In the USSR, subjected to cruel oppression, the Witnesses did not harbor hatred of their persecutors. Now Jehovah’s Witnesses are a multinational brotherhood that has proved capable of overcoming prejudices that divide people.
2. Nowhere else in the world, except Russia, Jehovah’s Witnesses are accused of extremism. Communities of this religion operate freely in more than 200 countries around the world. All of them are united by one, Bible-based dogma. Millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses are concerned about unfounded accusations against their Russian co-religionists.
3. Russian experts in the field of human rights condemn the application of the law on extremism to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation in his report for 2013 noted: “The problem of imperfection of the so-called” anti-extremist “legislation remains acute. The vague formulation of the basic concept of “extremism” itself becomes even more blurred when adding the definition of “religious” to it. What exactly is “religious extremism” can not be solved even by scholars of religion. But this “rubber” concept is easily operated by other law enforcement and judicial bodies in the field, investing in it own subjective attitude to a particular confession. “
4. The international community condemns the application of the law on extremism to Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. “The Assembly calls on the Russian authorities … to refrain from applying the law on extremist activity against all religious communities, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses” ( Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe No. 1896 [2012], paragraph 25.31 ). The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly expressed concern that in Russia the law on extremism “is directed, in particular, against Jehovah’s Witnesses” ( CCPR / C / SR.3157., Concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of the Russian Federation ).
The Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves see an explanation of what is happening in the prophetic words of Jesus Christ, who was executed on false charges of inciting sedition. He warned his disciples: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:20).
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