CCPR/C/139/D/2925/2017 and (2), 26 and 27 of the Covenant. The Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party on 1 January 1992. The authors are represented by counsel. 1.2 On 28 March 2017, the State party requested the Committee to consider the admissibility of the communication separately from the merits. Having considered both parties’ submissions in that regard, on 10 July 2017, pursuant to rule 93 of its rules of procedure, the Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteurs on new communications and interim measures, decided to consider the admissibility of the communication together with its merits. Facts as submitted by the authors 2.1 The authors are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were members of the board of directors of the local religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses of the city of Elista. The organization was registered in 1999. 2.2 On 25 June 2015, police officers from the Centre for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kalmykia searched the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall (the place of worship) in Elista, acting upon information received from M. and S. about books given to them by Jehovah’s Witnesses from the Elista local religious organization. The officers found a plastic bag in the shrubs surrounding the property, which the authors claim was planted by the police or had been planted there earlier, on the orders of the police. Inside the bag were two copies of a book entitled What Does the Bible Really Teach? and a children’s book entitled My Book of Bible Stories, both of which had been banned as extremist literature by Rostov Provincial Court on 11 September 2009. 2.3 On 6 July 2015, the Prosecutor’s Office of Kalmykia issued a warning to the Elista local religious organization for conducting extremist activity. On 11 September 2015, Elista City Court found the organization guilty pursuant to the Code of Administrative Offences (art. 20.29 concerning the production and mass distribution of extremist material) and imposed a fine of 100,000 roubles (some €1,304). The organization, acting through Mr. Yurlov, its chairman, appealed to the Supreme Court of Kalmykia. The appeal was rejected on 9 November 2015. 2.4 On 6 December 2015, the Centre for Countering Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Directorate of the Federal Security Bureau of Kalmykia conducted a second search of the Kingdom Hall in Elista. On that occasion, in the attic the police found eight copies of four Jehovah’s Witnesses publications that the Russian courts had declared extremist literature. On 9 December 2015, the Prosecutor of Kalmykia filed a case to have the Elista local religious organization declared an extremist organization. 2.5 On 8 December 2015, the Elista local religious organization filed an appeal with the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation against the warning that the Prosecutor’s Office of Kalmykia had issued on 6 July 2015. That appeal was rejected on 14 January 2016. On 25 February 2016, the Supreme Court of Kalmykia declared the Elista organization an extremist organization, ordered its dissolution and the confiscation of its property. The court found that the Elista organization had repeatedly engaged in mass distribution of literature that its members knew to have been declared extremist and banned in the Russian Federation. That was evidence of the organization’s intentional extremist activity and of its attempts to conceal it, given that it had continued after Elista City Court imposed the fine on 11 September 2015. The court also found that the dissolution of the organization, which had only 10 members, was proportionate to the public aims of protecting the rights and freedoms of others, public order and security, property, the lawful economic interests of natural persons and legal entities, society and the State. The court concluded that the individual rights of the members of the organization would not be violated, since they could continue individually to practise their religion without engaging in the distribution of extremist literature or any other public activity that violated the rights of others. The organization appealed to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation arguing, among other things, that it had never stored or distributed the banned publications and that the evidence had been planted by the police; that the list of banned publications had been distributed among organization members to prevent the use thereof; that there had been no mass distribution, as only a few copies of the banned publications were at issue; and that its rights 2 GE.24-00304