AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL
CALLS FOR RELEASE OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESS FROM DENMARK ARRESTED
THREE YEARS AGO
Amnesty
International,
25 May 2020
On the
third
anniversary of the arrest of Dennis Christensen, a Danish
Jehovah's Witness who
was living in Russia, Amnesty International turned to the
Russian authorities
with a demand for his immediate and unconditional release. In
February 2019, he
was sentenced by the Zheleznodorozhny district court of Orel to
six years
incarceration on a charge of "arranging the activity of an
extremist
organization."
"Using
this sad
occasion—the third anniversary of the arrest of Dennis
Christensen—we remind
the Russian authorities of their obligation to respect the right
to freedom of
conscience and of the necessity of the unconditional release of
all Jehovah's
Witnesses who are now imprisoned. They all have been subjected
to prosecution
exclusively for their religious affiliation and they are
prisoners of
conscience. Their release is urgently needed especially now, in
the midst of
the COVID-19 pandemic, which poses a threat to the health and
life of
prisoners," the director of the Russian representation of
Amnesty
International, Natalia Zviagina, declared.
She said
that the
ruling by a Russian court of Jehovah's Witnesses "as an
extremist
organization" and the ban of its activity are "an absurd,
illegal act
and are incompatible with the obligations of Russia according to
international
law." "In the 21st century, nobody should be persecuted, to say
nothing of depriving them of liberty, for their faith," she
thinks.
Dennis
Christensen
became the first Jehovah's Witness who was subjected to criminal
prosecution
for his religious confession after the Russian Supreme Court, in
April 2017,
ruled that the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia
should be
prohibited as extremist, its activity should be halted, and its
property should
be confiscated. His guilty verdict was confirmed on appeal by
the Orel oblast
court on 23 May 2019, and two weeks later he was transported to
correctional
penal colony No. 3 in Lgov of Kursk oblast. (tr. by PDS, posted
26 May 2020)
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