On July 13, 2015, customs in the Russian city of Vyborg (Leningrad Region) unexpectedly detained a large shipment of Bibles. This is a New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures published by Jehovah's Witnesses. Customs officers not only seized the entire shipment of 2013 copies of the Bible, but even opened a case against the Jehovah's Witnesses center in Finland, from which the shipment came.
Jehovah's Witnesses have faced bans and seizures of their literature before, but this is the first time that law enforcement agencies have paid attention to the Bible. It is particularly surprising that the customs ordered an examination to establish whether the Bible in question was "extremist." Russia may become the only country in the world in which the Bible, the holy scripture of several world religions, will be recognized as "extremist literature."
The case of the inclusion of the New World Translation in the Federal List of Extremist Materials is currently being considered in the Vyborg City Court. If this edition of the Bible is on the list, its distribution will be banned throughout the country. This will be a serious restriction of the constitutional rights of citizens, because the freedom to choose religion, including sacred texts, is guaranteed by Article 28 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
In some languages of the peoples of Russia, the New World Translation is the only complete edition of the Bible. One of these languages is Ossetian. As a result of the ban, all Christians who speak this language will not be able to read the full Bible.
The possible recognition of the Bible as extremist seems especially strange due to the fact that in November 2015 the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law prohibiting the recognition of the Bible and other sacred texts as extremist. Prior to that, Russian courts had twice rejected attempts to recognize well-known sacred texts as such (the Bhagavad-gita in 2011 and the Koran in 2013).
The Russian authorities do not limit themselves to confiscating only the Bible from Jehovah's Witnesses. Arbitrary detentions of various Bible literature have been going on since March 2015. Each time, in order to confiscate another batch of literature, law enforcement officers send copies of it for "examination", which necessarily finds supposedly signs of extremism in it. Customs officers continue to seize literature even though Jehovah's Witnesses have provided court decisions and expert examinations confirming that it does not contain any signs of extremism. Customs simply ignores these documents.
Jehovah's Witnesses sincerely hope that common sense will prevail and Russian officials will abandon attempts to ban the Bible, a book of books. "If they are not stopped by knowledgeable people, it will be a disgrace to the whole world, because the Bible is a great book that is read not only by Christians around the world, but all over the world," says Lyudmila Alekseeva, a human rights activist and member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.