About the situation around Pastor Thomas Kahn

Increasingly, in Russia, prosecutors are bringing cases against believers, against Christian missionaries, and these cases are not formally persecution of believers based on their religious beliefs. Essentially, representatives of different faiths are provoked, and the consequence of the provocation is a criminal or some other case.

In this regard, the Guild of Experts on Religion and Law calls on the Investigative Committee of Russia, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and the general public to pay attention to the case of Protestant Church pastor Thomas Kahn, a US citizen, who, due to obvious provocation, found himself under investigation for bribery .

The chronology of events is as follows. Pastor Kan built a house in the Zaoksky district of the Tula region, which he called the “House of Joy” for Christians so that they could gather there for prayer and communication. The house was supposed to open on September 29, 2012, but it was on this day that Kan was detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center. On October 1, 2012, Kan was charged with committing a crime under Part 3 of Article 30, Part 3, Article 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The pastor did not admit his guilt and refused to testify.

The investigation is being conducted by the senior investigator for the investigation of particularly important cases of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Tula Region, A.A. Bykov.

On September 26, 2012, on the territory of the house built by Kan, employees of the Federal Migration Service detained a citizen of Uzbekistan, Sadikov, who was engaged in construction, for violating the migration regime. Then Thomas Kahn was sentenced to a fine of 2 thousand rubles for harboring a foreign citizen without properly executed documents (Part 3 of Article 18.9 of the Administrative Code).

Migrant Sadikov was also sentenced to 6 days for petty hooliganism. At the Federal Migration Service, Thomas Kan, who wanted to somehow help Sadikov, was told that he needed to go to the deputy chief of public safety, police captain R.V. Sasin. In Sasin’s office, Ekaterina Frolkova, who accompanied Thomas Kahn, pushed Kahn to put 3 thousand rubles on the police captain’s desk, explaining that “that’s the way it should be.” After this, the pastor was immediately detained, and what was happening, as it turned out, was filmed on video.

As a result, the pastor, who does not understand Russian well, committed a “serious crime of corruption.”

Cases of this kind, clearly directed against unwanted believers, against active Christian preachers who cannot stand up for themselves, damage Russia’s reputation as a Christian country abroad. What is happening to Pastor Kan is clear persecution on religious grounds, which was done through criminal provocation. Of course, the actions against Pastor Kan are aimed at ending the existence of the Christian community he created, and this case is also a way to expel him from Russia.

We hope that both the Russian and foreign public will respond vividly to such flagrant cases of violation of the rights of believers to freedom of religion and belief, which are increasingly occurring on Russian territory under various pretexts.

Roman Lunkin,

President of the Guild of Experts on Religion and Law

Inna Zagrebina,

Chairman of the Board of the Guild of Experts on Religion and Law