In Moscow, three Jehovah's Witnesses had their detention periods extended

The Cheryomushkinsky District Court of Moscow extended the detention of three Jehovah's Witnesses by three months. This was reported on a website covering the persecution of believers.

57-year-old Eduard Sviridov, 49-year-old Sean Pike and 44-year-old Alexander Rumyantsev will remain in pretrial detention until January 24, 2022. The defense filed an appeal.

The judge refused to read out the case materials and did not allow the defense to read evidence - transcripts of a hidden audio recording. The defense filed a motion to disqualify the judge.

Sviridov, Paik and Rumyantsev were detained on August 26 after searches that took place at at least five addresses in Moscow. Believers are accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).

Sean Pike is a citizen of Russia and Guyana. He is married and has two young children with chronic illnesses. In the pre-trial detention center, he was forced to sleep on the floor in an overcrowded cell. After that, he suffered from coronavirus.

• 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. Most of the people on the list are believers between 40 and 60 years old. Some of them are charged under the article on involvement in the activities of an extremist organization (Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), and some are charged under the article on financing such activities (Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code).