The religious group Jehovah‘s Witness says their local leader is being persecuted in Russia under a vague anti-extremism law, the Associated Press reports.

The group said Monday that Alexander Kalistratov is going on trial in the Siberian town of Gorno-Altaisk for alleged ”incitement of religious enmity and hatred.”

The group‘s spokesman Robert Warren said the trial is part of a “larger problem” that Jehovah‘s Witnesses have been facing in Russia and called the trial a “misapplication” of Russia 2002 anti-extremism law.

Human rights advocates claim that law is used to crack down on dissidents and religious groups that Russia‘s dominant Orthodox Church disapproves of.

In September 2009, a court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don banned a regional branch of Jehovah‘s Witness and outlawed dozens of its publications.

Not new in Russia. They keep running rings around the Witnesses at the instigation of Orthodox Church.

Googler:

Not new in Russia. They keep running rings around the Witnesses at the instigation of Orthodox Church.

GBAM you have said it all

Well, as Jehovah's witnesses we are not suprised, because Jesus Christ said it clearly in John 15:20 that His disciples will be persecuted just as He was persecuted.