In St. Petersburg, the court once again extended the arrest period for the leaders of the Church of Scientology

The St. Petersburg City Court extended the term of arrest for leaders of the Church of Scientology in St. Petersburg.

On June 4, 2018, it became known that the St. Petersburg City Court extended term of arrest for leaders of the Church of Scientology of St. Petersburg. Until October 19 2018 Ivan Matsitsky and Sahib Aliyev will remain in custody, Anastasia Terentyeva and Konstantia Esaulkova will remain at home arrest.

The court motivated the extension arrest after a year of detention of believers, the need to familiarize themselves with materials of the case, which amounted to 70 volumes. The prisoner's lawyers intend appeal against the unlawful decision of the court.

« Investigator dragged out the investigation , they say. - And it is his fault, not the accused. Therefore, the law determines that the extension detention for more than one year is possible only in one case - when the accused should be familiarized with the materials of the case. No other reason to extend the arrest can not be. Matsitsky and Aliyev stated in court that they did not want to get more acquainted with the materials of the case, that is, they no longer need it, but, accordingly, there is no reason to keep them in custody. But the court did not take them into account statements and did not even reflect them in the decision .”

Recall that the arrests and searches took place within the framework of criminal case under Art. 171 (illegal business), Art. 282 (inciting hatred) and Art. 282.1 (organization of an extremist community) of the Criminal Code RF. According to investigators, the Church of Scientology was engaged in shadow entrepreneurship, selling educational programs to their followers, which are not taxed.

Recall we tend to view it as wrongful to prosecute Scientologists for extremism. The assertion of one's own exclusiveness is characteristic of any religion, and persecution of Scientologists and the banning of their literature on this basis unfounded. The separation as a consequence of a part of adherents of Scientologists who are subjected to psychological pressure, into a social group protected by anti-extremist legislation seems to us doubtful.

Sources

• Court extends arrests of St. Petersburg Scientologist leaders by four months // RAPSI. 2018. June 4.