Jehovah’s Witnesses as Extremists: The Russian State, Religious Pluralism, and Human Rights

Abstract

This article examines the Russian Supreme Court’s 2017 decision to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses as “extremists.” The decision will bring Russia’s anti-extremism law before the Council of Europe via the European Court of Human Rights. The article considers why this particular religious minority group became a test case by examining the unique beliefs and practices of Witnesses and their history of episodic conflict with the state. It also highlights the role of the Orthodox Church in shaping attitudes, popular and political, toward religious pluralism in Russia. In the Putin era, an increasingly illiberal rhetoric about totalitarian cults and traditional values connected nontraditional faiths to national security threats, a link made clear in the Putin regime’s promotion of spiritual security. Overall, the article argues that the 2017 ban signals the repudiation of European human rights norms by Russian governmental authorities, lawmakers, and religious elites.