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Following the Russian example, the self-declared People's Republics of Lugansk (LPR) and Donetsk (DPR) have banned Jehovah's Witnesses and other ‘non-traditional’ faiths. [17] The illegitimate regimes had already accused Jehovah's Witnesses of cooperating with the Ukrainian secret service SBU and neo-Nazi groups in 2017. [17]
Jehovah's Witnesses have an active presence in most countries. These are the most recent statistics by continent, based on active members, or "publishers" as reported by the Watch Tower Society. [1] The Watch Tower Society provides 'average' and 'peak' figures for the number of active members.
Krasnohvardiiske has been the site of repressions against Jehovah's Witnesses, a religious minority group that is persecuted in Russia. [8] During the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022, Ukraine has retaliated by repeatedly attacking Russian assets in Crimea.
In all, Jehovah's Witnesses brought 23 separate First Amendment actions before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1938 and 1946. [36] [37] Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone once quipped, "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties." [38]
In October 2022, three Jehovah's Witnesses were sentenced to six years in prison in Sevastopol, a city that belongs to a part of Ukraine annexed by Russia. Although the denomination's activities are legal in Ukraine, the decision was made by "a Moscow-imposed court" that found them guilty of organizing activities for Jehovah's Witnesses.
This led to the formation of the Theocratic Organisation of Jehovah's Witnesses, which discontinued the use of Watch Tower Society publications printed after 1962. The group has a presence in Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova, and claims to seek contacts with Witnesses in other countries. [11]
Pictured: Jehova witnesses in Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine. A heterosexual couple from Ukraine applied for refugee visas in Australia. The male partner had suffered physical harm in his home country because of his involvement with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jehovah's Witnesses claim to have 265,985 adherents, as reported in the movement's 2013 Yearbook. In 2010 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated its Kyiv Ukraine Temple , and in 2012 claimed a membership more than 11,000 in 57 congregations in Ukraine.