Human rights activists ask the president to pay attention to the persecution of Scientologists

An open letter has been published in defense of arrested members of the Church of Scientology of St. Petersburg.

On September 21, 2017, representatives of a number of Russian human rights organizations headed by the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki group of Lyudmila Alekseeva sent an open letter to President Putin with a call to intervene in the situation with the arrest of a group of St. Petersburg Scientologists under Art. 171 (illegal business), Art. 282 (inciting hatred) and Art. 282.1 (organization of an extremist community) UK. Human rights activists draw attention to the fact that Scientologists was groundlessly accused of extremist activity and subjected to pre-trial arrest. Among the signatories of the letter is the head of the SOVA Center Alexander Verkhovsky.

Recall that in June 2017 Nevsky Petersburg District Court Arrested Five Defendants in the Scientology Case Church of St. Petersburg, the head of the organization Ivan Matsitsky, Galina Shurinova, executive director, chief accountant Sahib Aliyev, head of the security service Anastasia Terentyev and her deputy Constance Esaulkova (the latter was sent under House arrest).

We believe prosecution of Scientologists for extremism is unlawful. More about this case we wrote here .

Sources

• Alexander Chernykh, Dmitry Marakulin. Scientologists are promoted to the presidential level // Kommersant. 2017. September 25.
• Open letter to the President of the Russian Federation // Kommersant. 2017. September 25.