The prosecutor asks that a supporter of Jehovah's Witnesses be given a suspended sentence

On April 29, a debate took place in the Nadezhdinsky District Court of the Primorsky Territory in the case of believer Lyudmila Shut. This was reported on the website of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

Shut, who has a disability of the second group, is accused under the article on participation in the activities of an extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) due to meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses. The prosecutor requested a four-year suspended sentence for her, with a probationary period of three years and a restriction of freedom of one year. He also proposed banning women from working in public organizations for four years.

In April 2019, Lyudmila Shut was brought in as a witness in the case of another believer, and in February 2020, a criminal trial began against her. At that time, Jester was 73 years old; she could not move without crutches or outside help. During the search, no prohibited materials were found in Jester's house. During the hearings, witnesses confirmed that they had never heard extremist statements from her.

In September 2020, Lyudmila Shut was supposed to be sentenced, but the prosecutorchallenged Judge Natalya Derevyagina. In his opinion, Derevyagina may be biased towards the accused, since she was considering a case in which Jester acted as a witness. The court granted the prosecutor's application. A different judge will announce the verdict on May 13.

• 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.
• According to Federal Law No. 114-FZ “On Combating Extremist Activities”, extremism is a violent change in the constitutional order, violation of the territorial integrity of the state, justification of terrorism, propaganda of social inequality depending on various characteristics and discrimination, committing hate crimes, propaganda of Nazism, as well as calls for such activities and their preparation.