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Back in 2006 the Russian government altered its legal definition of religious extremism, removing references to committing violence or inciting hatred. From then on, all you had to do to be an extremist was to “incite religious discord”. And so, on Thursday, the Russian Supreme Court made a decision to ban the peaceful Jehovah’s Witnesses on the grounds of their “extremism” and ordered the state to confiscate all their property. Extremism is, of course, a slippery word. Yes, they take the Bible literally. So, for instance, they take the instruction in the book of Leviticus not to eat blood is a prohibition against any sort of ingestion of blood, including blood transfusions. They also take literally the Biblical instruction not to spill blood, to kill – so they refuse to serve in the armed forces. All this may seem extreme to some people, or foolhardy or brave. But it’s hardly extremism in the same way in which, for example, ISIS are extreme. It’s not even the same ball park. For a number of years now the Russian police have raided Jehovah’s Witness places of worship and confiscated their books. But this latest decision takes things to a whole new level. Baroness Anelay, speaking for the British Government, has described herself as “alarmed”. This ruling “criminalises the peaceful worship of 175,000 Russian citizens” she has said. And “alarmed” is absolutely right. For, by coincidence, it was on this very day, April 24th in 1933, that the Nazi government first moved on the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany, closing down the Watch Tower Society in Magdeburg. Not only did the witnesses refuse to serve in the Wehrmacht, they also refused to say Heil Hitler. A Gestapo unit was established to monitor their activity. They were forced to wear purple triangles. Their children were taken from them to receive a patriotic German education. And several thousand were taken to concentration camps. In 1942, one Wolfgang Kusserow was beheaded in Brandenburg prison for being a Jehovah Witness. “Thou shalt not kill” he shouted back at his executioners. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are right to fear history repeating itself – they are one of the most persecuted group of Christians in the twentieth century. When World War Two was over, many unlucky enough to be in the Soviet Union were exiled to Siberian labour camps. All this has never been about religious extremism, I don’t think. It’s more about political authorities cracking down on those who would pledge their lives to something other than the state. And if the state cannot find within itself a place for those who peacefully refuse to worship in its temples, then it is the state that is extreme, not the Jehovah’s Witnesses.