The court in Voronezh turned a blind eye to the obvious facts of falsification of evidence against Jehovah's Witnesses

On December 20, 2016, Judge Alexander Kuryanov of the Leninsky District Court of Voronezh issued an order to suspend the activities of the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses for a period of 1.5 months for allegedly "storing extremist materials." In fact, the lawyers presented to the court all the evidence that the brochures were planted on the believers.

The evidence was falsified on October 9, 2016, during a worship service held at the Voronezh sports complex on Voroshilov Street with the participation of 650 local Jehovah's Witnesses. On that day, referring to a call received about an alleged crime, the police invaded the worship service. Law enforcement officers began to look for "extremist materials" in a very unusual place - in the decorative colors with which the room was decorated. What was the surprise of believers when the police "discovered" hidden books included in the list of extremist materials (see photo). In addition, after passively examining several rows of believers, the police chose for inspection a package belonging to a stranger, which contained a book entered into the FSEM. The man, according to eyewitnesses, hastily left the hall just before the arrival of the police. In addition, several false witnesses appeared, who stated that they were independently in the building and were handed publications from the list of extremist materials. Although these people claimed that they did not know each other, however, video camera recordings show that before the start of the service, these people communicated with each other, took pictures together and checked their watches. Finally, the witnesses, as follows from the video, to a direct question from the lawyer, clearly confirm their interest in the outcome of the operational event.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not use materials that have been deemed "extremist" as a result of a series of miscarriages of justice. They strongly oppose any form of extremism that is deeply alien to their biblically based beliefs and morals. Believers consider the court's decision to be a very sad event.