MOSCOW (February 23, 2001 12:34 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - In a case seen as a key test of Russia's treatment of minority religions, a Moscow court on Friday threw out a prosecutor's case that sought to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow.
"We won the case," exulted defense lawyer Galina Krylova after the ruling was announced. The case that had been pending for more than two years.
The Moscow city prosecutor had been trying to outlaw the Moscow branch of the U.S.-based church, using a provision in the Russian law on religion that allows courts to ban religious groups found guilty of inciting hatred or intolerant behavior. The trial began in September 1998 but was recessed six months later to give an expert panel a chance to study the group's publications.
The panel was instructed to search for evidence to back up the prosecutors' claim that the group destroyed families, fostered hatred and threatened lives. But the city's Golovinsky district court refused the prosecutor's request and ordered that the office pay for the work of the five experts who'd spent two years studying the religious group's texts, the Interfax news agency reported.
Krylova said only part of the ruling was read in court and that she would know what arguments the court provided only when the ruling was made available in full. Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to Interfax, prosecutor Tatyana Kondratyeva said she needed to study the ruling.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have alleged that Russia's religion law has been used to restrict churches other than Russia's biggest, long-established faiths that enjoy special status: Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The outcome of their case could help determine the fate of many minority churches in Russia, they have said.
Had the prosecution won, the capital's estimated 10,000 Jehovah's Witnesses would no longer have had the right to hold public services, rent property or distribute literature in Moscow.