Christmas Greetings from the Prosecutor's Office in St. Petersburg: the Detention and Beating of Believers

While conducting probes into the activities of the Protestant church Exodus, law enforcement officers raided the apartments of churchgoers. As a result, five people were taken to the police station, where one of them was beaten.

On the day after all around the world, Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox celebrated one of the major religious holidays —the Nativity,—prosecutors decided to investigate the activities of one of the Northern capital's Protestant churches.

On the evening of December 26, law enforcement officials virtually simultaneously descended on the apartments of parishioners of the Exodus Church of St. Petersburg. In three apartments, contact with the authorities proceeded generally civilly and without excesses. However, in one case matters escalated to the use of force. Unhappy with the statements of those subjected to the raid, the local police and prosecutor early on issued a summons to appear and then dispatched the believers to Division 66 of the Krasnogvardeysk Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in St. Petersburg. In the end, a group of five underwent further interrogations at the division. Failing to uncover grounds for detention or incriminating evidence on the activities of the religious organization, the prosecutors decided to take the fingerprints of the detainees. During this procedure, the prosecutorial worker taking the fingerprints did not like it that one of the detainees had his hand in his pocket. Seeing in this disrespect for authority, the officer hit the believer in the genital area. The victim noted the badge number of the officer, and now statements will be sent to the Internal Security Directorate of the Police regarding the abuse of authority while conducing police duties.

Not until after 1 AM were the believers allowed to return to their homes.

The Local Religious Organization Church of Evangelical Christians "Exodus" is officially registered and has been operating in St. Petersburg for more than a year. Up to two hundred people attend divine services every Sunday. One of the important activities carried out by the Church is to work with people belonging to risk groups and to help addicts. Several of the current congregation staff overcame this pernicious addiction in the past and are now trying to help those who are still enslaved by narcotics. The Church operates three rehabilitation centers in the Leningrad District. The Church belongs to one of the largest Protestant denominations of the Russian Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith [ROSKHVE] (Pentecostals).

According to Attorney Nikolai Semenov, the Director of the Legal Department of ROSKHVE and Member of the Moscow Chamber of Advocates, the abuse of power by law enforcement agencies is obvious: "In addition to the use of force, this raises question about the grounds for detaining believers and bringing them into the division," said the lawyer, "And also the general thinking behind the prosecutor's decision to investigate an officially registered church is not entirely clear."

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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.