On April 5, the Novosibirsk Regional Court upheld the verdict of the Leninsky District Court of Novosibirsk regarding 67-year-old Jehovah's Witness Yuri Savelyev. Previously, he was sentenced to six years in a general regime colony. The European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses reported this to OVD-Info.

On December 16, 2020, the Leninsky District Court found Yuri Savelyev guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced him to six years in a general regime colony. The prosecutor's office requested eight years in prison for the pensioner.

Savelyev has been in custody since November 2018, notes the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia portal. At the same time, in March of this year, the cassation court ruled that Savelyev was kept under arrest from October 22, 2019 to December 16, 2020 illegally.

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 Novosibirsk, the court approved the term of a Jehovah's Witness who was sentenced to six years in a colony