Translated material
In Sergiev Posad, Jehovah's Witnesses are being tried again for extremism
On December 9, the Sergivo-Posad City Court began considering a criminal case under Art. 282 (incitement to hatred or enmity and humiliation of human dignity) against two members of the religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses, Vyacheslav Stepanov and Andrey Spivak. This was reported to OVD-Info by the Press Service of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.
In March 2016, the court already acquitted the defendants (a copy of the verdict is at the disposal of OVD-Info), but on May 26, the court of appeal overturned the acquittal, and now they face a new trial.
The case was opened in April 2013. According to the investigation, Spivak and Stepanov “committed actions aimed at inciting hatred and enmity, as well as humiliating the dignity of a person and a group of persons on the grounds of an attitude towards religion, committed publicly by an organized group”:
Sivak A.P. together with Stepanov V.Yu. and other persons unidentified during the investigation, the exact time during the investigation was not established, but no later than October 25, 2007, on the territory of the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region, a more precise place was not established during the investigation, agreed among themselves and united in a stable a group of persons for the purpose of committing actions aimed at publicly inciting hatred and humiliating human dignity on the basis of the attitude towards religion of Russian citizens in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region. Acting with a single intent and purpose, according to the distributed roles Sivak A.P. and Stepanov V.Yu. and other persons unidentified in the course of the investigation united for the above purpose in a non-profit organization prepared title documents, the Charter of the "Local religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses of the Sergiev Posad district" and on 10.25.2007 registered in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region in the Federal Registration Service for the Moscow region, the non-profit organization Local Religious Organization Jehovah's Witnesses of the Sergiev Posad District (OGRN 1035000021100). Then, in continuation of their criminal intent, acting as an organized group, at a time not established during the investigation, but no later than August 15, 2010, in order to publicly incite hatred and humiliate human dignity on the basis of their attitude to religion, they received house No. » Vorokhobino village, Sergiev Posad district, Moscow region.
The evidence in the case was the testimony of operatives from the Center for Combating Extremism, who attended worship services of Jehovah's Witnesses as part of operational-search measures to check the religious community "for extremism." CPE employees were present at the community meetings during the speeches of Spivak and Stepanov, filming everything on a hidden camera:
He made a video recording of these meetings together with N. E. Luchikhin. Active members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious community V. Yu. Stepanov are captured on these video recordings. and Sivak A.P., in particular, on the video of August 15, 2010, it was captured as Sivak A.P. from the podium delivered a speech with the title "What reputation do you deserve with God." Also after Sivak A.P. Stepanov V.Yu. spoke at the podium. and Sivak A.P. speak at the meeting and make a speech from the podium (vol. 2 pp. 14–16, 18–20, 139–140; vol. 9 pp. 228–230). At the hearing, witness Chumachkov SV. in addition, he showed that on August 15, 2010, Stepanov said in his speech that working for the state is very bad, it is not right, it will not lead to the “Kingdom of God” (however, he does not remember his exact statements on this topic now). These words upset him (Chumachkov) and he was offended, because he worked for the state. Stepanov said that one must live as indicated in the scriptures, the meaning of Stepanov's speeches was that all religions except Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong religions, they teach wrong things, their ministers are hypocritical. The meaning of Sivak's speeches on August 15, 2010 was reduced to the same statements.
The investigators considered that the statements of the speakers that Jehovah's Witnesses "do not want to lead an empty life that does not have a great value, like most people - they have no goals and have no meaning in life and are unfortunately unhappy" - arouse hatred and enmity towards representatives of all other faiths. Also, relying on the testimony of the CPE operatives, the investigation imputed to the defendants the public quotation of a book included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials of Rosfinmonitoring (the book Draw Close to Jehovah).
However, in 2016, the court found these findings untrue. According to the court, the opinion of those who profess a particular religion that only their religion is true, and all the rest are false religions, cannot be considered extremist, just as the expression of this opinion in public cannot be considered an extremist crime. Public citation of individual passages from prohibited texts is also not in itself an act specified in Article 282 of the Criminal Code - it is necessary to analyze the specific quotation and its meaning. And the witness from the CPE could not remember the specific quotes uttered by Spivak or Stepanov - he, according to him, remembered only the general meaning of the "extremist" speeches of the accused.
The court verdict of March 4, 2016 states that the psychological and linguistic examinations carried out at the initiative of the investigation are inadmissible evidence:
The meaning of the above individual phrases and examples from the speeches is isolated from the general meaning of the speeches of the speakers, which in general led to a distorted presentation of the content of the speeches. At the same time, the experts unreasonably draw a conclusion that the Jehovah's Witnesses are contrasted in their speeches with people professing other religions, including Catholicism, only on the grounds that they consider their religion to be true, and therefore (as the conclusion of the experts themselves, not confirmed content of the video) other religions are false.
In addition, the court verdict contains references to purely procedural violations by the prosecution in the course of the case. For example, during the process, the defense provided an irrevocable decision to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings against the accused on the basis of the facts that served as the subject of criminal proceedings:
However, then the court was presented with data that the material of the check was not presented to the court by the investigating body in full and there was a fact of cancellation of the decision of 03/25/2012 with the subsequent issuance of another similar decision on 12/24/2012, which was in turn canceled 04/09/2013. After that, on the same day, material was isolated from the material of the check, which subsequently served as the basis for initiating this criminal case.