Russia's Supreme Court bans Jehovah's Witnesses

Russia's Supreme Court announced Thursday that it has banned the Jehovah's Witnesses from operating in the country, ordering the religious group to close 395 of its local chapters.

The announcement came after the court accepted a request from the justice ministry that the religious organization be considered an extremist group.

The court also ordered the seizure of the group’s property.

Justice Ministry attorney Svetlana Borisova was quoted by the Interfax news agency in court Thursday as saying that the Jehovah's Witnesses "pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security."

The Jehovah's Witnesses claim more than 170,000 adherents in Russia. The group has come under increasing pressure over the past year, including a ban on distributing literature deemed to violate Russia's anti-extremism laws. The religious group, which preaches door-to-door, rejects military service and blood transfusions.

Russian prosecutors have long cast the group as an organization that destroys families and spreads hatred, which it denies, according to Reuters.

The group said it would appeal the decision and if it is upheld, the case would be shifted to the European Court of Human Rights, the TASS news agency reported.

“We are greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity,” Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, said in a statement. “We will appeal this decision, and we hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible.”

Once the Supreme Court ruling is appealed, it will only go into effect when the appellate court announces its decision.

Crocodile eats South African hunter

DNA tests on the carcass of a crocodile shot in Zimbabwe have confirmed that it contains the remains of a missing South African hunter, an investigator has told the BBC.
Scott Van Zyl was killed last week on the banks of the Limpopo river, said Sakkie Louwrens, director of a South-African crime-fighting NGO.
He said Mr Van Zyl disappeared during a hunting safari last week.
His death is the latest in a series of fatal crocodile attacks in Zimbabwe.
Mr Louwrens told the BBC that Mr Van Zyl had gone on a hunting trip on the Zimbabwe-South Africa border with a local tracker and a pack of dogs.
He said the pair left their vehicle and went in different directions in search of crocodiles.
A search and rescue operation was launched after Mr Van Zyl's dogs returned to their camp without him.
The hunter's footprints were traced to river bank alongside his discarded rucksack. He was married, had two children and took foreign clients on hunting trips.
Mr Louwrens said staff from the Heritage Protection Group - an organisation which he heads and helps police fight crime in South Africa - informally helped the Zimbabwean authorities conduct the search.
"Permission was given for three Nile crocodiles in the area to be shot, and one of them contained Mr Van Zyl's remains," he said. "Subsequent DNA tests have proved the remains to be those of Mr Van Zyl."
At least four fatal attacks by crocodiles have been reported in Zimbabwe this year.
One conservation group meanwhile has condemned the circumstances of his "senseless" death.

"[He] shouldn't have been hunting in the first place. Animals in the wild… are wild! They are living, thinking beings with instincts for survival," a statement by One Green Planet said.

Nigeria 'gay wedding' bust leads to charges

Prosecutors in the northern Nigeria state of Kaduna have charged a group of 53 people with conspiring to celebrate a gay wedding.

The accused, arrested last Saturday, have denied the allegations, with their lawyers saying they were illegally detained.
The court released the group on bail and the case was remanded to 8 May.
Homosexual acts are banned in socially conservative Nigeria and are punishable by up to 14 years in jail.
During a court appearance in Chediya-Zaria, the group pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, unlawful assembly and belonging to an unlawful society.
Defence lawyer Yunusa Umar said most of the accused were students and had been illegally detained for more than 24 hours, the local Premium Times newspaper reported.
Gay rights campaigners who have been in touch with people involved in the case told the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty in Lagos the accused were arrested at a birthday party, not a wedding.
Nigeria has an influential Christian evangelical movement in the south and strong support for Islamic law in the north, both of which oppose homosexuality.
In January 2014, the Hisbah, or Islamic police, in Bauchi state raided several locations and arrested about a dozen men accused of sodomy acts.
Some of the men later appeared before a Sharia court for a bail hearing and an angry crowd gathered outside, demanding swift and severe punishment.
Stones were thrown at the court and the hearing was halted.
Police had to shoot in the air to disperse the mob and get the suspects back to prison safely, though there they are also vulnerable.
The ban on homosexuality, brought into effect in 2014, is used by some police officers and members of the public to legitimise abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
"Extortion, mob violence, arbitrary arrest, torture in detention, and physical and sexual violence" are common against people suspected of homosexual activities, HRW said in a 2016 report.

Imprisoned Pakistani Christians offered release if they convert to Islam

Pakistani Christians imprisoned on terrorism charges for the lynching of two men after the 2015 church bombings in Lahore were allegedly told that if they renounced their faith and embraced Islam, their acquittal would be guaranteed.

According to Pakistan's Express Tribune , a prosecutor reportedly told 42 Christians who were arrested after two suspected terrorists were lynched following the bombing of two churches in the Youhanabad neighborhood of Lahore that if they convert to Islam, he "can guarantee their acquittal."

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"Taking advantage of their presence at ATC-1 Lahore, Deputy District Public Prosecutor Syed Anees Shah gathers the accused outside the courtroom and asks them to embrace Islam," Joseph Franci, a rights activist helping to provide legal aid to the jailed Christians, told the Express. "He asks them if they embrace Islam, he can guarantee them their acquittal in this case."

Franci added that one of the imprisoned men, Ifran Masih, responded by saying that he would rather be hanged than embrace Islam.

One of the defense attorneys, Naseeb Anjum, told the Express that a similar offer was given to the jailed Christians about six months ago. However, the offer went ignored.

"The government should get rid of such elements that bring bad name to the state by such acts," Anjum said.

The prosecutor, Syed Anees Shah, initially told the Express that he did not ask the prisoners to embrace Islam but later conceded that he did give the prisoners a choice to convert after he was told that there was video recording of what he said.