A Protestant pastor in Kemerovo was fined for a video about active citizenship

The Central District Court of Kemerovo fined Andrey Matyuzhov, the bishop of the local New Generation Protestant Church, under the article on organizing an uncoordinated public event (part 2 of article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). this He reports on his Facebook page. The court imposed a fine of 20 thousand rubles.

The pastor called the administrative case fabricated. He was prosecuted for a video in which he explained the meaning of the word "idiot". At the end of the video, he suggested that the “non-idiots” would take to the action in support of Khabarovsk residents in the center of Kemerovo on August 15. A re-edited fragment of this recording was considered in court as evidence of the priest's guilt.

On November 19, the Zavodsky District Court of Kemerovo fined Andrey Matyuzhov 10,000 rubles on November 11 under the article on inciting hatred or enmity (Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses), he reports on Instagram. also writes about this. Kommersant

According to the court, in the video sermon “Love of money is the root of all evil”, published on August 9 on the YouTube channel of the Christian Protestant Church of Kemerovo, Matyuzhov spoke out “against certain groups of the population, identified on a social and confessional basis”, and also called “for political activism along analogy with mass unauthorized actions in Khabarovsk with the aim of overthrowing the existing government.

• In 2016, Pastor Andrey Matyuzhov was fined under the article on illegal missionary activity (Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). He was accused of not notifying the city administration about the creation of the church.