Landmark CCPR Ruling: Jehovah’s Witnesses Found to Be Discriminated “Vulnerable Religious Minority” — Case Rooted in 12 Believers from Ufa

The UN Human Rights Committee (CCPR) has ruled that Russia violated the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses in Ufa who were subjected to searches, interrogations and—in one case—detention. In its Views adopted on March 13, 2026, the Committee for the first time applied articles 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to a Jehovah's Witnesses case, noting that Jehovah's Witnesses are a "vulnerable religious minority" facing discrimination by the state.

Caption: The applicants described what they had to go through during and after the searches. The video was produced in June 2018.

The believers filed their complaint eight years ago—on April 30, 2018. A few weeks earlier, the authorities had authorized searches of their homes, seized Bibles, religious publications and personal belongings, and then summoned them for questioning at the Investigative Committee. In their submission to the UN Human Rights Committee, the believers said that "the authorities tried to intimidate them and force them to renounce their faith, with the aim of suppressing Jehovah's Witnesses' religious practice," and stressed that "without any reasonable or objective justification they were subjected to criminal prosecution that no other religious organization in Russia had faced."

"At the time of my detention, only one Witness, [Dennis Christensen], had been arrested," recalled Anatoliy Vilitkevich, one of the applicants. "My wife and I were following the news and were really worried about how things would unfold. We thought that if the police did come, it would be during a worship service; they would question everyone and let them go—because then, as now, we were sure we hadn't done anything illegal." After the raid, Anatoliy spent two months behind bars. He was accused of organizing the activities of a banned organization for friendly gatherings and conversations on spiritual topics. In September 2021, Anatoliy was given a two-year suspended sentence.

The Committee called the restrictions imposed on Jehovah's Witnesses under the banner of "countering extremism" unfounded. "Instead of identifying any extremist acts committed by the authors [of the complaint], the authorities effectively imposed a total ban on their religious practice, treating any manifestation of it as a criminal offense," the Views state (para. 9.9). The Committee concluded that the overly broad interpretation of the Supreme Court's decision deprived the applicants of "the right to profess and practice their religion together with other members of their religious minority" and "threatened the very existence of their religious community."

In the case Vilitkevich and Others v. Russia (No. 3192/2018), there were twelve applicants (in addition to Anatoliy, they were Alyona Vilitkevich, Venera Mikhaylova, Vinera Ganieva, Alfiya (Aliya) Ilyasova, Syuzanna Ilyasova, Yelena Kozhevnikova, Oksana Lapina, Gulfiya Khafizova, Lilianna Khafizova, Nadezhda Yakimova and Olesya Yakimova). The oldest was born in 1960, the youngest in 2001. The Committee ordered the state to pay the believers adequate compensation for court costs and legal expenses, and to compensate Anatoliy Vilitkevich additionally for his time in detention.

In the concluding part of its Views, the Committee effectively takes the case beyond a single Ufa story. It obliges the state to provide an effective remedy, "to make full reparation," and "to take all necessary steps to prevent similar violations in the future"—a demand for justice for all Jehovah's Witnesses persecuted in Russia, who now number around 1,000.