E/CN.4/2005/61/Add.1 Page 52 the religious organization “Kvanrim” Moscow United Methodist Church applied to the Presnya district court in Moscow, arguing that protocol No. 6 of the general assembly, according to which decisions were taken to amend the statutes of the organization and to change its leadership, was void, and that licence No. 1139 dated 23 May 2002 and the amended statutes of the organization were invalid. On 23 March 2004, the Presnya district court granted the religious organization’s application. Evidence provided by specialists showed that the documents submitted for the purposes of State registration contained forged signatures and stamps. 202. On 26 March 2004, the Special Rapporteur transmitted a communication regarding two congregations on Russia's Pacific coast - the Grace Pentecostal Church and the Orthodox Parish of the Annunciation – which could lose their places of worship after the Sovetskaya Gavan city council abruptly cancelled a contract it had made for the use of a State-owned building. The contract was allegedly cancelled after the town elected a new mayor, Valeri Shevchuk. Officials had reportedly hinted to Church members that under a new "commercial" agreement the rent for their building would be so high that they would give it up of their own accord. 203. On 27 October 2004, the Special Rapporteur sent a communication in connection with information according to which on 20 August 2004, law enforcement personnel wearing camouflage, helmets, gas masks and machine guns cordoned off a rented field in Lyubuchany where 70 Baptists were erecting a tent in preparation for a two-day religious meeting. After the Baptists had refused to give advance notification of the event, about 200 law enforcement personnel arrived in the village. Reports indicated that access to the field was blocked when 4,000 Baptists arrived from all over Central European Russia for the gathering on the morning of 21 August 2004. Vasili Ryzhuk, a local resident arrested several times for his beliefs, was reportedly arrested and taken to a nearby police station as he started to pray. He was released when Mr. Ryzhuk, who suffers from a heart condition, began to feel ill. According to the information received, the whole operation was conducted in accordance with a local instruction dated 20 August entitled “On Measures to Prevent Events of a Religious Nature Taking Place in Lyubuchany Village”, which prohibited “unsanctioned events of a religious nature” in the village during the period from 20 to 31 August 2004. On 13 September 2004, the Lyubuchany Baptist community prayer house was reportedly destroyed by fire in unexplained circumstances. 204. On 24 July 2004, the second day of their annual congress of the Urals region, more than 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were reportedly forced to leave the Yekaterinburg city stadium, which they had rented for the event. Reports indicated that the religious organization had held a congress at that venue every year since 1996. However, it was alleged that the Jehovah's Witnesses had been experiencing problems from the first day of the 2004 event. According to the information received, the assistant director of the stadium suddenly claimed that the rental fee of 100,000 roubles, which had already been paid in full, had not been authorized and did not reflect the stadium's actual expenses for staging the event. The Jehovah's Witnesses refused to pay a further 400,000 roubles, arguing that they had concluded a valid legal contract for the original sum with the stadium's director on 1 June 2004. In response, the assistant director allegedly threatened to halt the congress and, when delegates arrived on Saturday morning, access to the stadium was reportedly blocked by 10 young men claiming to be private security guards. However, as these men had neither