Railway station station Vyazemskaya. Source: Dr. Leonid Kozlov / CC BY-SA 3.0
The Town of Vyazemsky Becomes a New Hotbed of Religious Persecution: at Least Seven Searches of Believers per Day
Khabarovsk TerritoryOn May 27, 2020 reports of new searches in Khabarovsk Territory came. According to preliminary information, armed officers of the FSB searched Yen Sen Lee, 68, and his wife, as well as 19-year-old believer and his mother. Both men were detained and taken to an unknown location.
At 21:00 local time, it became known that Yen Sen Lee returned home. Other details are being clarified.
The total number of searches in believers' homes has already exceeded 900. Large-scale religious persecution in Russia began throughout Russia after a miscarriage of justice—the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to liquidate and ban all 396 organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. Law enforcement officials, for unknown reasons, interpret the joint worship of these law-abiding citizens for participation in the activities of an extremist organization. Law scholars and human rights activists both in Russia and abroad unanimously condemn the actions of the authorities towards Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.
The Russian government has repeatedly stated that decisions of Russian courts to liquidate and ban Jehovah's Witnesses legal organizations do not prohibit the Jehovah's Witnesses' creeds, "do not contain restrictions or prohibitions on the individual practice of the aforementioned doctrine" and "do not limit the constitutional right of believing citizens to unite.