The court in the Jewish Autonomous Region confirmed the sentence of Jehovah's Witnesses

Earlier, Andrey Gubin was sentenced to two and a half years of probation.

On February 1, 2022, the court of the Jewish Autonomous Region upheld the sentence of Jehovah's Witness Andrey Gubin, previously sentenced by the Birobidzhan District Court to two and a half years of suspended imprisonment with a two-year probationary period, as well as a year of restriction of liberty under Part 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (participation in the activities of an extremist organization).

The Birobidzhan District Court sentenced Gubin in September 2021. The state prosecutor asked the court to sentence the believer to four years in prison and two years of restriction of liberty.

The community of Jehovah's Witnesses in Birobidzhan was declared extremist on October 3, 2016 (even before a general ban was issued on the activities of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and 395 other Russian organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses), and on February 9, 2017, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation approved this decision. We believe that the bans of Jehovah's Witness communities in Russia are unlawful and a manifestation of discrimination.

Sources

• Criminal case card No. 22-29/2022 // Court of the Jewish Autonomous Region. 2022. February 1.
• The Birobidzhan Court of Appeal overturned the sentence against Andrey Gubin and sent the case back for a new trial. Message from Jehovah's Witnesses. 2022. February 2.
• The message about the annulment of the sentence of Andrey Gubin from Birobidzhan has not been confirmed. An appeal on February 1 left the court's decision unchanged - 2.5 years probation. February 28, 2022