Translated material
During searches of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow, a believer was hit in the head with the butt of a machine gun
In Moscow, during a series of searches at Jehovah's Witnesses on November 24, one of the security forces hit believer Vardan Zakarian in the head with the butt of a machine gun. This was reported on the website of the religious organization.
They came to Zakarian with a search at 6 am. Immediately after the believer opened the door, one of the security forces knocked him down with a blow to the head with the butt of a machine gun. The believer's wife was ordered to lie on the floor. Seeing blood on her husband’s head, she fell to the floor and tried to cover her husband with her body. Zakarian became ill, and an ambulance arrived at the scene. As the daughter of Jehovah's Witnesses says, when she was asked to help her father, she found him lying on the sofa with a bloody wound on his forehead, pale and trembling. There was a 10cm blood stain on the floor.
After the search, the believer was hospitalized with a diagnosis of traumatic encephalopathy. Relatives were not allowed to see him in the hospital. On November 26, Zakarian was discharged and taken to an investigator, who interrogated him and brought charges at night. The next day, the believer was taken to the Presnensky District Court, which sentenced him to house arrest until January 23. Earlier, eyewitnesses reported that they saw abrasions on Zakarian’s face, but the details of the search were unknown.
Zakaryan’s case on organization and recruitment into an extremist organization (Part 1 and Part 1.1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) is being processed by the investigator for especially important cases, Dmitry Smadich. The investigator ignored Zakarian’s lawyer’s request to clarify the fact of violence against his client, and subsequently stopped answering calls. The lawyer filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office.
On November 24, security forces in Moscow conducted searches of Jehovah's Witnesses at at least 10 addresses. The Investigative Committee announced the initiation of a criminal case regarding the creation of an extremist organization in connection with the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow, as well as conducting searches of believers in more than 20 regions.
- 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.
- In February 2019, the court handed down the first verdict in the case of the activities of an extremist organization against a Jehovah's Witness with real imprisonment - Danish citizen Dennis Christensen was sentenced to six years in prison, his complaint was accepted for consideration by the ECHR. At least 13 believers have already received real sentences.
- According to estimates by the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia website, the number of people persecuted for involvement in this religion in the country has exceeded 400 people.