by Alexandra Samarina
Obshchaia gazeta
8 October 1998

On 29 September in Golovin district court of Moscow with Judge Elena Prokhorycheva presiding the first hearing of the case for prohibiting the activity of the Moscow religious society of Jehovah's Witnesses was held. The case was initiated by the procurator of the northern district of the capital, Alexander Viktorov. The next trial session is scheduled for 17 November and representatives of the Ministry of Justice will participate in it on the basis of a petition from the Jehovists.

The first "Witnesses" appeared in the country around 100 years ago. Under conditions of the complete and uncontested dominance of the Orthodox church all religious "dissidents" were divided, in the terminology of the time, into "harmful" and "especially harmful" sects. Baptists, for example, were considered simply a harmful sect inasmuch as they did not urge their teachings upon others, but the Molokans and Jehovists, who were actively propagandizing their views at the time, became "especially harmful."

Throughout the entire soviet period Jehovah's Witnesses were subjected to persecutions equivalent to those of other dissidents. Jehovists were fined severely and sent into exile, mainly into Kazakhstan and Siberia.

Vasily Kalin describes the following: "In 1952 they led us to the area of Irkutsk. Elections were on Sunday and the older ones in the family did not go to vote and by lunch time the administration had already come to the house to persuade them. They did not manage to persuade and my parents along with grandmother and older brother were taken away and kept in a tent; there was no prison in the village." In 1970, when Vasily's father was fined fifty rubles, on the receipt of the savings account they wrote "for faith."

In the 1980s the persecutions abated and in 1992 the Jehovists received the possibility of legal activity for the first time. In seven years the number of organizations in Moscow alone increased twenty times and reached 10,000 persons out of the 250,000 adherents around Russia. At the same time the influence of the Orthodox church, which traditionally has been intolerant of proselytism of other confessions on their own "native" territory, was increasing sharply.

It seems that these were the "spiritual and patriotic" reasons which became the basis for the creation of the image of a "harmful sect" in the official presentation of the prosecutor of the northern administrative district of Moscow, Alexander Viktorov. The chief accusation is the incitement of religious strife: "The literature which the believers are obliged to study contain the proposition that maintains that the only true religion is 'Jehovah's Witnesses' (the style of the document has been preserved--A.S.), while the others are declared to be false and doomed to an inescapable end." The conclusions of the prosecutor seem more than strange: one would like to know whether there is any confession whose members are not persuaded of the truth of their own religion.

"All who do not profess this religion," Mr. Viktorov continues, "are called by Jehovah's Witnesses 'the goats" or "adherents of Satan's world," which cannot but offend the sentiments of other people who do not share their doctrine."

Obviously such expressions of the Jehovists inevitably engender special hostility within families. Appropriately, the disruption of families is one of the direct accusations against the organization.

I had a conversation with Marina Zubareva, mother of a fifth-year student in the Institute of International Relations Maxim, who had become a Jehovist while he was still a school pupil. "At first our family was horrified by the religious passions of my son. We turned wherever we could, to the priest and to the Committee for Salvation of Youth from Totalitarian Sects. Then we began to notice that our boy was changing; he stopped being rude to grandmother and he did everything around the house willingly. Now sometimes I learn from my friends about problems with other children and I think to myself: I am lucky. He treats us in love and we respect his principles. We know that they do not observe holidays, for example, but so what? Is that such a shame? So when he has a birthday we just get together on the next day and simply drink some tea with cake and its fine with us and his religious views are not offended."

In our complex time (though, when was it simple?) every family gets by in its own way, and if Zubareva is satisfied with her son and peace in the family is not disrupted, do we have the right to condemn the parents for their tolerance and the son for belonging to an exotic religion?

There are, however, families where religion has become an "apple of discord." Yury Slobodeniuk, with whom I happened to become acquainted, is one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution. The story of Elena and Yury is bitter and sometimes tragic. It involves children, of whom there are four, from six to sixteen years of age. Yury accuses his wife of departing herself from Russian traditions which he defends.

At our meeting he spoke about "hypnosis" and "psychotropic influence" upon his wife, who "abandoned the children, stopped housekeeping in the apartment, and gave all her time to the sect." The conversation with him leaves a more troublesome impression. He marshals many contradictory conclusions in defense of his position. When I learned that his wife lives separately with two children, I was interested in the material support that he gives to them and I learned that the aid consists in the slim allowance from the pension of the retired soldier. Then he declared his willingness to take the children himself. But, pray tell, on what means? Answer: on the high salary in the company.

The conversation with Elena was full of bitterness and resentment. She has never forgiven her husband for mocking her sick son when the object of the mockery was his very helplessness. Lena is sure that her husband, who told her about the "other woman" in the spring, simply wants to take the children for a single goal, to get from her the four-room apartment. If the sect is forbidden then he will gain the real possibility of depriving Lena of her maternal rights.

I have resolved not to judge who is right and who is in the wrong in this situation. However I do know that millions of people in the country have resolved problems of divorce and square meters without requiring the prohibition of one or another confession.

Oh, how cautious Procurator Viktorov should be so that in the pursuit of the dubious glory of being the first to shut down a sect he not become a participant in a commonplace family dissolution.

Confused family interrelationship will never be understood fully by outsiders. There is, however, a certain reality which seems evident and tells against the Jehovists. This has to do with the Witnesses' refusal of blood transfusions. This has become another of the accusations against the "sectarians." The most sensitive time is the possible death of children, whose fate is in the hands of believing parents.

But here is an interesting fact, however: among the overt opponents of blood transfusions we see Dr. Debakey, who has operated for dozens of years without using donor's blood. Incidentally, this was how the surgery on President Yeltsin's heart was done.

On 5 October in Moscow there was a representative international congress "Alternatives to blood transfusion in surgery." This is what we were told by a medical doctor, the associate director of the Institute of Hematology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Vladimir Gorodetsky: "Any transfusion engenders an immune conflict and threatens complications. In case of a sharp loss of blood it is more beneficial to transfuse the patient with colloidal or salt solution. It was the Jehovists who forced physicians to look for alternatives, and they were found. . . ."

At the same time Gorodetsky acknowledges that in certain situations it is impossible to avoid transfusion of the components of blood for a patient and thus he does not fully share the position of the Witnesses in this matter, but he does not doubt the right of a patient to refuse the suggested treatment. That is, the right to choose.

As we see, the matter of transfusion of blood has not been fully decided. It is possible to resolve such a problem at the level of a district court? Without trying to justify the actions of the Jehovists,we doubt that such questions lie within the procurator's jurisdiction.

In following the logic of the indictment and demonstrating the necessity of blood transfusion for the Jehovist "objectors," the procurator must not only resolve global medical questions but also begin a trial against Professor Debakey, medical doctor Gorodetsky, and many, many others.

The procurator of the northern district of Moscow is not the original instigator of persecution of Jehovists. During World War II in the province of Quebec in Canada local authorities banned the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses. Five members of the organization were taken to court, which found them innocent and forced the "head of the administration" personally to pay financial compensation to the victims. There were such trials in other countries also. The most recent was in Greece in 1993. The case was reviewed by the European Court on Human Rights and the attempts of the Greek government were found illegal.

A councillor of the constitutional court of the Russian federation, Will Kikot, is convinced that if the Golovin court bans the activity of the Jehovah's Witnesses this will lead to a conflict with the European Court on Human Rights and then we shall still be forced to overturn the ill-fated decision. He notes the prejudice and contradictions of the present law "On freedom of conscience," which is the basis for the procurator's presentation. "I consider the distinction in the text of the law of a 'special role' for some religions to be illegal. This contradicts the individual right of a Russian citizen to choose a personal confession of faith."

The present attempt of Procurator Viktorov to prohibit is the third of its kind. The first two fell through. In December of last year the senior investigator of the procuracy of the same northern region of Moscow, jurist first class Maria Andreeva, issued an order terminating the criminal case and acknowledging the accusation against the Witnesses completely baseless. As a result, Andreeva was dismissed and the case was sent for additional investigation. In April 1998 the regional investigator for especially urgent affairs, Elena Solomatina, issued another order for termination of the case. But with the extremely strange formulation, "By its activity the 'Jehovah's Witnesses' organization tramples on provisions of the constitution of the Russian federation, although no cases of specific instances of criminal activity by members of the organization have been demonstrated. . . ."

It is hard to comprehend what investigator Solomatina had in mind. But it is obvious that the agencies of justice have problems in investigating the complex situation.

The behavior of Judge Prokhorycheva inspires the only hope for just conduct of the case, who reviewed the initial petitions of the parties objectively. On 29 September the corridors of the Golovin court were completely filled; 150 persons awaited their fate at the door of the overflowing room. What was their future? Would it again be the underground, fines, and exile? (tr. by PDS)

(posted 13 October 1998)