On August 27, a court in Kazan placed Jehovah's Witness Konstantin Sannikov under arrest. He is currently being held in pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Tatarstan. This was reported on the website “Igeova’s Witnesses in Russia.”

Sannikov was charged with organizing the activities of a banned religious organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, he held “illegal religious meetings... with the aim of inducing [the audience] to hostile perceptions of people identified on the basis of their religious affiliation, as well as justifying the need to carry out aggressive, violent, cruel actions directed against a person in connection with his religious affiliation.”

Sannikov worked as a forensic doctor and also has a minor child.

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. Later, 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.
In February 2020, Rosfinmonitoring added more than two hundred Russian followers of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion to the list of extremists and terrorists. Most of the people on the list are believers between 40 and 50 years old who are under investigation or sentenced to various punishments under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization or participation in the activities of an extremist organization). *

Jehovah's Witness arrested in Kazan