Taganrog LRO and others v. Russia, Nos. 32401/10 and other 19, ECtHR (Third Section), 7 June 2022

The treatment of Jehovah's organizations, as well as of individual faithful, within the Russian Federation amounted to a plurality of violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Art. 9 ECHR
Art. 10 ECHR
Art. 11 ECHR
Art. 1, Prot. 1, ECHR

 

1. Preference for one’s own religion, the perception of it as unique and the only true one or as a “superior explanation of the universe” is a cornerstone of almost any religious system, as is the assessment of the other faiths as “false”, “wrong” or “not conducive to salvation”. Proclaiming the superiority of a particular religious dogma or conception of life is an essential aspect of a legitimate exercise of the right to try to convert others by means of non coercive persuasion which enjoys the protection under Article 9 of the Convention. In the absence of expressions that seek to incite or justify violence or hatred based on religious intolerance, any religious entity or individual believers have the right to proclaim and defend their doctrine as the true and superior one and to engage in religious disputes and criticism seeking to prove the truth of one’s own and the falsity of others’ dogmas or beliefs.
(The case revolved around various actions taken by the resistant State against Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organisations, as well as individual faithful, over a ten-year span. Among those, numerous applicants complained about a requirement to re-register, amendments to anti-extremist legislation leading to the banning of their religious literature and international website (expressively deemed as “extremist”) and the revocation of their permit to distribute religious magazines. Eventually, the State aimed to a nation-wide ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organisations in Russia, the criminal prosecution of hundreds of individual Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the confiscation of their property. The Court held that there had been a plurality of violations of Articles 9, 10, 11 Convention and of Article 1, Prot. 1)