In Kirov, a court seized the property of a follower of Jehovah's Witnesses

The court seized the apartment and garden of Anatoly Tokarev, which are in the possession of his mother.

On July 1, 2019, in Kirov, the Oktyabrsky District Court arrested the apartment and garden of Anatoly Tokarev, a 60-year-old follower of Jehovah's Witnesses, who is suspected under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization of the activities of an extremist organization). The seized property is in the possession of his elderly mother Lidia Kachurina.

Recall, according to the decision of the Supreme Court "On some issues related to the use of confiscation of property in criminal proceedings" and Part 3 of Art. 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (seizure of property), any property of the suspect can be seized if the court "has sufficient grounds to believe" that it was used as "a tool for carrying out extremist activities."

The criminal case against Tokarev was opened in May 2019. The believer is suspected of having “organized… including in his apartment… meetings of the followers and participants of the specified assembly in compliance with the actions characteristic of this association, expressed in the joint singing of biblical songs… the study of religious literature, the so-called ‘Holy Scripture’ (Bible ), included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials Containing the Faith of Jehovah's Witnesses".

This is the third criminal case against followers of Jehovah's Witnesses in the region. The previous ones were initiated in the fall of 2018 and in March 2019 .

The decision to recognize the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and 395 local organizations as extremist was made by the Supreme Court of Russia in April 2017. was rejected In July , an appeal against this decision , after which, in August, the organizations were included in the list of extremist ones. We believe that this decision, which entailed the mass persecution of believers under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code, had no legal grounds, and we regard it as a manifestation of religious discrimination.

Sources

• Message from Jehovah's Witnesses. 2019. July 29.