A court in Smolensk upheld suspended sentences of up to six and a half years for three Jehovah's Witnesses

On August 31, the Smolensk Regional Court upheld the verdict of Jehovah's Witnesses Valery Shalev, Evgeniy Deshko and Ruslan Korolev. The European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses reported this to OVD-Info.

On April 23, the Industrial District Court of Smolensk found the believers guilty under the article on organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced them to suspended sentences. Shalev and Korolev were sentenced to six and a half years of suspended imprisonment with a probationary period of five years, a year of restriction of freedom and a ban on holding positions in religious organizations for a period of four years. Evgeniy Deshko was sentenced to six years of probation with a probationary period of four years, a year of restriction of freedom and a ban on holding positions in religious organizations for a period of three years.

The resolutions implicating Jehovah's Witnesses as defendants state that they “organized and conducted a joint prayer to Jehovah and demonstrated video clips.”

• In Smolensk, at least four more people are involved in criminal cases related to Jehovah’s Witnesses. On April 22, the Sychevsky District Court of the Smolensk Region sentenced Maria Troshina and Natalya Sorokina to six years' probation with a probationary period of three years. In May 2019, the courtarrested 60-year-old Tatyana Galkevich and 63-year-old Valentina Vladimirova. On December 2 of the same year, the appellate court released Galkevich from the pre-trial detention center under house arrest; Vladimirova was transferred to house arrest in November.
• 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.
• 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.