A court in Rostov-on-Don extended the term of detention in a pre-trial detention center for local Jehovah's Witnesses

The Leninsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don extended the detention in a pre-trial detention center for three Jehovah's Witnesses Alexander Parkov, Vilen and Arsen Avanesov until August 1. The Caucasian Knot reports this with reference to lawyer Roman Kakasyev.

The defense insisted on mitigating the preventive measure and transferring the believers under house arrest.

At the end of March, it became known that Jehovah's Witnesses were transferred from pre-trial detention center No. 1 to detention center No. 5 in Rostov-on-Don.

Father and son Avanesov, as well as Parkov, have been under arrest for about two years - they were sent into custody in May 2019. The men are accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), and Arsen Avanesov is additionally accused of collecting funds to finance its activities (Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code). Avanesov was charged with this for receiving donations to rent premises for meetings of fellow believers.

• In 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 organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were added to the list of prohibited ones. After this, a stream of criminal cases against representatives of the confession began.
• Rosfinmonitoring has added hundreds of Russian followers of Jehovah's Witnesses to the list of extremists and terrorists. Most of the people on the list are believers between 40 and 60 years old. They 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).
• 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.