Denmark Kristensen is arrested in Orel in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses

The Soviet District Court of Orel arrested the subject of Dennis Kristensen in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses. This was reported on the court website.

Kristensen has already been charged under Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization of activities of an extremist organization). He threatens from 6 to 10 years in a colony. The case is conducting the regional head of the FSB.

The Dane was detained following the results of the searches that the FSB, together with the police, spent the night before. According to information on the website of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, about 15 armed security officials, including the FSB, came to the house where Jehovah's Witnesses gathered, and reported on the fact of the business of the community of the case under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code. Religious literature was seized from believers, including the Bible, as well as laptops, tablets and hard drives of computers. Visiters rewrote the passport data of the audience, and also took explanatory members from the community members. Searches were also held in the dwellings of believers.

Several men, including Kristensen, were detained and brought to the regional FSB, where they left for the night. However, in the morning everyone except the Danes was released.

On June 14, 2016, the Orlov Regional Court in the suit of the regional headquarters of the Ministry of Justice banned the local community of Jehovah's Witnesses, declaring it an extremist organization. On October 18, the Supreme Court confirmed this decision.

Meanwhile, on April 20 of this year, the judge of the Armed Forces Yuri Ivanenko, in the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice , banned the management center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia , thereby placing the law of 175 thousand believers. The decision will be appealed, however, in terms of termination of the activities of the management center and all local communities, it is subject to immediate execution.

After the decision of Ivanenko, in different regions of the country , attacks on prayer houses and dwellings of Jehovah's Witnesses began. It is known about incidents in Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Penza, the Moscow Region, Rostov and Tula regions, the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In particular, on April 30, in the village of Lutsino, the Odintsovo district of the Moscow Region, a drunken local resident who previously expressed against Jehovah's witnesses threw Molotov’s cocktail into the house where the family of followers of this denomination lived. As a result, two houses and a car burned. The criminal was detained.

On May 2, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, urged him to use his influence to protect the rights of Russian witnesses Jehovah.