The case of Jehovah's Witnesses from Votkinsk was brought to court

The court in Votkinsk is starting to consider the case of two Jehovah's Witnesses charged under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code.

On September 1, 2021, the Votkinsky District Court of the Udmurt Republic received the case of Jehovah's Witnesses Sergey Gobozev and Mikhail Potapov. They are accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).

Potapov and Gobozev were detained in January 2021. The first was taken into custody, the second was placed under house arrest. In May, they were assigned a preventive measure in the form of a ban on certain actions.

According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, during the preliminary investigation, a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, a pastor of the Izhevsk-Yagul community of the Lutheran church, the chairman of the local organization of Orthodox Judaism and the Jewish community of the city of Izhevsk, and the deputy head of the administration of the regional spiritual administration of Muslims of Udmurtia were questioned as witnesses. All of them are alleged to have shown that Jehovah's Witnesses "deny the traditional and ethno-cultural values ​​of the peoples of the Russian Federation."

The accusation of Jehovah's Witnesses of involvement in the activities of an extremist organization is due to the fact that in April 2017 the Supreme Court of Russia decided to recognize the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and 395 local religious organizations as extremist. We believe that this decision, which entailed the mass persecution of believers in criminal proceedings, had no legal grounds, and we regard it as a manifestation of religious discrimination.

Sources

• The case of Mikhail Potapov and Sergei Gobozev was transferred to the Votkinsk District Court. Message from Jehovah's Witnesses. 2021. 9 September.