Over the past five years, hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been subjected to raids, arrests and prosecution in Russia. Many others have fled – including one…
Over the past five years, hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been subjected to raids, arrests and prosecution in Russia. Many others have fled – including one couple, Dmitrii and Nellia Antsybor, who flew to Mexico last year, walked across the U.S. border to seek asylum, and now hope to build a new life for themselves in Washington state. After entering the U.S., the couple were separated and sent to different immigration detention centers; Nellia in Arizona, Dmitrii in California. Nearly three months passed before they reunited in late February. Yet despite that ordeal, and missing her twin sister and her mother left behind in Russia, Nellia welcomes her newfound freedom in Federal Way, a suburb of Seattle. “It is nice to not be afraid to gather with our brothers and sisters even if it is via Zoom,” she said through a translator. “I have a sense of ease now.” One new source of concern: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I am very worried about what’s happening with my brothers and sisters in that country,” Dmitrii said. “We pray for them.” About 5,000 Witnesses in Ukraine have left, seeking protection in other countries, said Jarrod Lopes, a U.S.-based spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. For Witnesses in Russia – Lopes estimates there are about 170,000 of them – there’s been anxiety since the country’s Supreme Court declared the Christian denomination an extremist group in 2017. Hundreds have been arrested and imprisoned. Their homes and places of worship, known as Kingdom Halls, have been raided, and the national headquarters seized. The Witnesses’ modern, Russian-language translation of the Bible has been banned along with its globally circulated magazines, Awake and Watchtower. Nellia said she and Dmitrii had long been on the radar of authorities in the cities where they lived. They decided to flee, she said, after her mother called in October and said police had a warrant for their arrest. “To be a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia is to be constantly in legal jeopardy, constantly in fear of either an invasion of your privacy, confiscation of your property, or in many cases, being locked up,” said Jason Morton, a policy analyst at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan federal agency that tracks religious freedom violations worldwide. Last year, there were 105 guilty verdicts against Witnesses in Russia, according to the commission. The maximum sentences issued to them have increased from six to eight years The Russian government has never given a detailed justification for the crackdown.
