Russian police and officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) today raided the homes of several Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow, in an ongoing crackdown. Moscow outlawed the sect in 2017, labelling it “extremist,” following up with the sentencing of apprehended members to lengthy jail terms. The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, confirmed the detaining of several leaders and members. Prosecutors, the FSB security services and the national guard carried out searches at 16 addresses, the committee said. Investigators said the Jehovah’s Witnesses had established a branch in the capital where “secret meetings” were convened to study “religious literature”. Founded in the United States in the late 1870s by Charles Taze Russell, the religious movement has been repeatedly accu...
There are 8,132 people on France’s security watch list for persons suspected of terrorist leanings, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday. Working out which people on the list were at risk of actually attempting acts of terrorism was a “very difficult and delicate task,” Darmanin acknowledged. France suffered a series of major Islamist attacks in 2015 and 2016, mostly claimed by the Islamic State extremist group, which cost the lives of more than 230 people. Darmanin’s comments come two days before the trial of 14 people accused of links to the first attacks, in January 2015, in which 17 people were killed. The suspects face various charges, including terrorist conspiracy and complicity in murder, related to the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a kosher supermarket, ...