Four Jehovah's Witnesses arrested in Astrakhan

In Astrakhan, three men and one woman, whose names were not released, were detained and then arrested, the Investigative Committee reported on July 9 on its website. At the same time, a video of a search in the apartment of one of the defendants appeared on the SK YouTube channel.

By decision of the Kirovsky District Court of Astrakhan, three male suspects were sent to a pre-trial detention center, and the woman was sent to house arrest.

According to investigators, all four “were “elders” and actual leaders of the local religious organization “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in the city of Astrakhan and continued to organize meetings, knowingly knowing about the ban on its activities in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. In addition, they promoted the superiority of religious teachings over other persons, and also distributed extremist literature. Not wanting to be exposed by law enforcement agencies, the suspects used secrecy measures, including the use of video conferencing.”

According to the Investigative Committee, during searches at the suspects’ place of residence, computers and extremist literature were seized. The case is being investigated under articles on organizing the activities of an extremist community (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and participation in it (Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code), the department clarified.

Under these articles, suspects face up to ten and six years in prison, respectively.

September 12 A press release and video from the Investigative Committee reported on a criminal case against Sergei Klikunov, Rustam Diarov, Olga and Evgeniy Ivanov. OVD-Info published news about this earlier.

• On April 20, 2017, the Supreme Court recognized the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” as an extremist organization, liquidated it and banned its activities in Russia. In August, all Jehovah's Witnesses organizations were added to the list of prohibited organizations. After this, a stream of criminal cases against representatives of the confession began.