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Jehovah's Witnesses from Sergiev Posad are finally acquitted
On August 24, the Moscow Regional Court finally acquitted Jehovah's Witnesses Vyacheslav Stepanov and Andrei Sivak, they were accused of inciting hatred and enmity (Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code). The European Association of Christian Jehovah's Witnesses reports this in its newsletter. The court upheld the acquittal in July by the city court.
issued by Sergiev Posadsky The case against the elders of the Jehovah's Witnesses community was initiated in April 2013. The case was based on hidden video footage from the service. The organization claims that “operatives infiltrated the worship service, made hidden video recordings and handed the recording over to an expert collaborating with them, mathematics teacher Natalya Kryukova, who ‘discovered’ signs of extremism in the words of the believers.”
In a Sergiev Posad press release, the investigation claimed that the accused “committed actions aimed at inciting hatred and enmity, as well as humiliating the dignity of a person and a group of people based on their attitude to religion, committed publicly by an organized group.” The expert’s conclusions were later refuted by the ANO “Laboratory of Applied Linguistics”.
In April 2017, the Supreme Court of Jehovah's Witnesses was an extremist organization.