ST. PETERSBURG, June 6 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – Searches are being conducted in the Church of Scientology in St. Petersburg, the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) local directorate told RAPSI on Tuesday.

According to the FSB press service, the organization is raided as part of investigation into illegal business operations, incitement of hatred and enmity, and organization of an extremist community.

Several key defendants in the case have been arrested.  A court will choose a measure of restriction for them soon, the statement reads.

Dianetics and Scientology are a set of religious and philosophical ideas and practices that were put forth by L. Ron Hubbard in the US in the early 1950s.

The scientific community never recognized it as science.

A resolution passed in 1996 by the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, classified the Church of Scientology as a destructive religious organization.

The Moscow Regional Court ruled in 2012 that some of Hubbard’s books be included on the Federal List of Extremist Literature and prohibited from distribution in Russia.