Saw this in a thumbnail for another thread but thought it worth having here
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ars-in-jehovahs-witnesses-purge-idUSKCN1PV0W2
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...s-jailed-for-six-years-in-russia-in-crackdown
Russia has been having a bit of fun and games with religion for some years now ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/russian...ce-for-playing-pokemon-go-in-a-church.470334/ for a nice 2017 incident), and their case study is held to be an interesting one in general -- the general religiosity/religiousness of countries tends to decrease with time*, the main exception being Russia and other places that were forced to stop because of the whole communist lark.
Anyway it seems they have somewhat criminalised the Jehovah's Witnesses and this is the first case (possibly of many) wherein an adherent has been sentenced for the crime of simply being one, using laws on a par with ones aimed at terrorists and such like.
Now while I find most nominally Christian sects amusing I have absolutely no love for the Watchtower** , and they probably have no love for me (I might have helped a few ex members get back in touch with people, or otherwise back on their feet, making their shunning rather less effective than it can be), but this I find this to be very dubious on the part of Russia.
*a nice selection of videos thanks to Noel Plum makes a good start
**Their means, methods and approaches to the world I find horrific, and take great satisfaction in helping to dismantle. See any number of ex witness discussions/videos/whatever if you want to go further there -- the articles above might give you the impression it would be just like banging up some random baptists of something, I would however make a distinction here and categorise them far closer to cult than not. Still not dangerous enemies of the people though.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ars-in-jehovahs-witnesses-purge-idUSKCN1PV0W2
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...s-jailed-for-six-years-in-russia-in-crackdown
Russia has been having a bit of fun and games with religion for some years now ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/russian...ce-for-playing-pokemon-go-in-a-church.470334/ for a nice 2017 incident), and their case study is held to be an interesting one in general -- the general religiosity/religiousness of countries tends to decrease with time*, the main exception being Russia and other places that were forced to stop because of the whole communist lark.
Anyway it seems they have somewhat criminalised the Jehovah's Witnesses and this is the first case (possibly of many) wherein an adherent has been sentenced for the crime of simply being one, using laws on a par with ones aimed at terrorists and such like.
Now while I find most nominally Christian sects amusing I have absolutely no love for the Watchtower** , and they probably have no love for me (I might have helped a few ex members get back in touch with people, or otherwise back on their feet, making their shunning rather less effective than it can be), but this I find this to be very dubious on the part of Russia.
*a nice selection of videos thanks to Noel Plum makes a good start
**Their means, methods and approaches to the world I find horrific, and take great satisfaction in helping to dismantle. See any number of ex witness discussions/videos/whatever if you want to go further there -- the articles above might give you the impression it would be just like banging up some random baptists of something, I would however make a distinction here and categorise them far closer to cult than not. Still not dangerous enemies of the people though.