Russia’s Supreme Court has designated the Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organization and ordered the state to seize the religious group’s property. In a Thursday ruling, the court upheld a government request to ban the group from operating on Russian territory. The ministry sought to liquidate the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, as well as 395 local branches throughout the country. The ministry was investigating the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Russian headquarters near St. Petersburg over the last year and claimed it discovered violations of a Russian law banning extremism. Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, said he was “greatly disappointed” by the court’s decision.

Source: Huffington Post April 20, 2017 20:26 UTC