In Omsk, a follower of Jehovah's Witnesses who was beaten during detention was sentenced to three years in prison

The Pervomaisky District Court of Omsk sentenced 48-year-old Sergei Polyakov to three years in a maximum security colony in the Jehovah's Witnesses case. Mediazona was informed about this by the press service of the religious organization.

Polyakov's wife, 36-year-old Anastasia, was sentenced to two years' probation, and two more women, Gauhar Bektermirova and Dinera Dusekees, were given suspended sentences of two years and three months and two years, respectively.

A release from the regional department of the Investigative Committee states that the couple moved from St. Petersburg to Omsk in September 2017 and “together with two local residents, they organized the activities of <...> the religious organization “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.”

According to investigators, the accused attracted townspeople and residents of the region to participate in the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses, “distributed extremist literature” and collected donations. “More than 540 thousand rubles were received into the account of one of the accused through the instant transfer system with the purpose of payment being ‘minister’s allowance,’” the release says.

On November 30, the court's website published information about the sentencing of the four defendants, but their names were not indicated. All four are charged with organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), one is charged with financing extremist activities (Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code).

The prosecutor asked to sentence Sergei Polyakov to 6.5 years in prison, and the rest of the accused to two years probation.

The Polyakovs were detained and arrested in July 2018, and in December they were transferred to house arrest. Sergei Polyakov said that masked security forces knocked down their door at 7 am, hit him on the head several times, “broke his nose and lip, resulting in severe bleeding,” after which they “knocked him to the floor, and one of the special forces hit him with his knee in face".

In 2017, the Supreme Court declared Jehovah's Witnesses extremist and banned its activities in Russia. After this, criminal cases were opened against hundreds of believers.