Russia | Bitter Winter

European Court of Human Rights: “Scientology Cannot Be Banned in Russia”

Judges find that arguments that Scientology is not a religion are unpersuasive, and its literature is not “extremist.”

Groups cannot be singled out as “cults” and discriminated through anti-cult propaganda or by using administrative tools, the judges said.

In Irkutsk, Siberia, Jehovah’s Witnesses believers were badly beaten and threatened with rape by OMON special forces agents.

The European Court of Human Rights’ Kuropyatnik decision is a clear message to Russian authorities: stop persecuting Scientology.

Dvorkin’s organization admits that criticism of anti-cultism “has spread even within the Church.” One of the academic critics is losing his chair.

On July 8, the Court of Kemerovo (Russia) ruled against the Falun Gong movement in what may become a crucial case.

Authorities continued to prosecuted those believing to have joined Nurdzhular. There is only one problem, Nurdzhular does not exist.

A woman who organized the Maha Shivratri festival in Udmurtia, Central Russia, was charged for “illegal missionary activity.”

Seventy years ago, 9,793 believers were taken from their homes in Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and sent to Siberia.

The notorious Alexander Dvorkin and some of his friends claimed they are those who are persecuted—by the U.S. and Bitter Winter.