Why Is Putin Afraid of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

[Sofia]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/26/why-is-putin-afraid-of-jehovahs-witnesses/

 

 "It’s absurd. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been anything but extremist, and we’re certainly not dangerous or violent,” said Jarrod Lopes, a spokesperson for the group’s headquarters in the United States. Jehovah’s Witnesses remain politically neutral for religious reasons and do not vote, run for office, or protest. That might have spared them the arrests and harassment levied against protesters and opposition politicians in Russia, but their apolitical stance might have singled them out in other ways. “That looks very suspicious to our authorities,” said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which tracks discrimination and misuse of Russia’s extremism laws. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Sofia

[carlos]

IMO Putin doesn't have anything personal against JWs. He owes some favors to his friends in the high hierarchies of the Orthodox church and is keeping them happy.

[Thomas Walker]

I would be surprised if Putin ever gave us a second thought. It's the way things happen in autocracies. JW's don't have money, weapons, or political clout. To Putin himself, I'd bet we don't even register on the scale. And fear? I doubt anyone in his entire hierarchy has ever admitted fear of anything. JW's have no power base in the sense that men are worried about.

 

The 'King of the North' warnings aren't tied to a particular leader. And that's the reason our brothers are under attack. It's about power and authority, to the men in charge, it's about fear of getting themselves noticed by the men who give the prison terms, and it's blind rage from the spirit of the world.

[Dustparticle]

Putin need to be afraid of Jehovah God!!

[Paulo]

Putin is not afraid of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the persecutions show that.
All foreign religions are under fire, we just obviously bear the worst part of the persecution as it is expected.
The new post-soviet Russia is a new country that faces a dilemma. It exited the soviet union and set its path to the West, the same west that it is now in confrontaion with.
Putin is building a russian identity based in traditional values, family, religion and nationalism. Something that can unite and prepare its citizen for what lies ahead.

We had the same thing in Portugal between 1926 and 1974. At the time the portuguese government was a dictatorship and the country was isolated from the rest of Europe. All messages from the government centered in motherland-church-family. Only the government party was accepted, only the catholic church was accepted and censorhip was in all the news and books.
We see the same pattern in Russia now, just different parties, a different church and different times.

[Sofia]

16 hours ago, carlos said:

IMO Putin doesn't have anything personal against JWs. He owes some favors to his friends in the high hierarchies of the Orthodox church and is keeping them happy.

Soooo true Carlos 👌

[TRUTH04]

IMO Putin doesn't have anything personal against JWs. He owes some favors to his friends in the high hierarchies of the Orthodox church and is keeping them happy.

You have a pm.

Sent from my TECNO LC6 using Tapatalk

[campanula]

He is not afraid but we seem to be an easy prey and a good appetizer for his bevy to be trained on us. 

 But he is wrong.

[cme]

On 3/26/2021 at 9:22 PM, carlos said:

IMO Putin doesn't have anything personal against JWs. He owes some favors to his friends in the high hierarchies of the Orthodox church and is keeping them happy.

Yes, that is so true.  It is the Orthodox Church.  Over a year ago I was in the right place at the wrong time for these men that were sitting next to me in a cafeteria and they were of different nationalities.  I over heard some talk.  They seemed to be men of some importance but, JW was part of their conversation and Russia.  In fact, they were clergy men.