The son of the accused Jehovah's Witnesses was fined under the article on evading conscription for military service

In the Sakhalin region, the Nevelsk City Court on January 17 fined Evgeniy Kulakov, the son of Jehovah’s Witnesses accused under the “extremist” article, 120 thousand rubles. He was found guilty under the article on evading conscription for military service (328.1 of the Criminal Code), although he asked to replace the service with an alternative one due to his religious beliefs. The court’s decision is reported on the website “Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.”

According to the believer, he was denied the right to alternative service, and in court they provided false information that Kulakov, as a student, allegedly participated in military shooting, which means he was misleading the state about his beliefs. As the authors of the note note, the organizer of the military training camp denied this information in court, explaining that there was no shooting that day.

The prosecutor requested a fine of 100 thousand rubles for Kulakov, but the judge increased it. At the same time, the monthly salary of a believer, they write on the website, is 10 times less than the amount of the fine imposed.

• In Nevelsk, three Jehovah's Witnesses are now accused in the case of an “extremist organization”, two of them are the parents of Evgeniy Kulakov, Sergei and Tatyana Kulakov. The case was first opened against Sergei in 2018, and in August 2019 - against one of their sons, Dmitry. In April 2020, a case was opened against Tatyana, and in July of the same year, the spouses and another believer, Vyacheslav Ivanov, were charged .
• Vyacheslav Ivanov and Tatyana Kulakova were charged with participating in the activities of an extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), Sergei Kulakov was charged with organizing such activities (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). All three are under recognizance not to leave the place. The case against the couple's son, Dmitry Kulakov, was dropped in September 2020.
• 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.