Russia: Raids on a Protestant Rehab Center (Video)

On November 9, 2012, the campaign to destroy the rehabilitation center New Life in Petersburg, Russia, passed to an active phase.

New Life was created in 1995 and is now the biggest and most effective rehabilitation center for drug- and alcohol-addicted people in Russia. There are 360 people going through rehabilitation at any given time. Research by the Russian Department of Health showed a success rate of 59.2 %. The center has received numerous certificates of honor, letters of thanks, and awards.

All of these achievements have been built on private donations and other funds raised by the center itself—they receive no funding from the Russian government.

Despite its success and positive impact on the community, for several years the Russian authorities have been attacking “New Life.”

The professed cause of these attacks is “violation of economic activity and human rights.” However, the true cause is the fact that New Life is located on a piece of real estate which has suddenly risen in value, a zone next to the Ust-Luga seaport coveted by some business organizations. “We know exactly who ordered the attacks and which corrupt officials have carried them out. The raids are acts of intimidation and attempts to find a way to discredit the center, then use it for the criminal prosecution of the center’s management,” says New Life founder Sergey Matevosyan.

Representatives of the prosecutor’s office of Leningradskaya Oblast repeatedly emphasized New Life’s connection with the Protestant church, calling it a sect and accusing the staff of “suppression of will of rehabilitants,” entirely without proof.

In the last few weeks, the center has been raided by the local police, the regional prosecutor's office, the regional FSB, the fire department, and the labor and sanitary inspectors. Even trained dogs were brought to find “hidden drugs” which, of course, didn’t exist. Nevertheless, Mr. Matevosyan expects to receive huge penalties. As he explains, “They weren’t able to intimidate us, they didn’t find anything, but now there will be penalties of ten of thousands of dollars for items like a fire extinguisher located in the wrong corner of a room.”

To be a Protestant in modern Russia is to be outside the law. You can be plundered and fined, your building can be destroyed (as was recently the case with Holy Trinity Church in Moscow), and authorities can fabricate a criminal case against you. All of this is done with impunity because only three major religions are protected—Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, and the Sunni sect of Islam. All others are left without the protection of the state, as the current case demonstrates.

more information in Russian

The video consist of introduction of a New Life Center, the footages from the Center during attack, and the statements from the persecutors office

Raids on New Life Center from Wade on Vimeo.