In Krasnoyarsk, Jehovah's Witness Evgeny Zinich was sentenced to six years in prison

In Krasnoyarsk, the Oktyabrsky District Court sentenced Jehovah's Witness Evgeny Zinich to six years in a general regime colony under the article on organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the SOVA Information and Analytical Center.

The believer was also deprived of the right to engage in organizational activities in public associations and religious organizations for two years and was given a restriction of freedom for a year.

In December 2020, security forces conducted a search in Zinich’s apartment. A month later, it became known that a criminal case had been initiated against him. According to investigators, the believer was one of the leaders of the local branch of Jehovah's Witnesses and “committed actions of an organizational nature.” His case was based on the testimony of three witnesses, one of whom was secret. The prosecution also referred to recordings of telephone and live conversations of the believer, religious studies and psychological-linguistic examinations.

Initially, the man served as a witness in the case of his co-religionist Andrei Stupnikov, who was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison, but later Zinich’s case was separated into separate proceedings.

On January 20, the Judicial Collegium of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court approved the verdict of Evgeniy Zinich on appeal. The website “Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia” reports this.

• In 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. All organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were included in the list of prohibited ones, after which a stream of criminal cases against believers began. Rosfinmonitoring has added hundreds of Russian followers of Jehovah's Witnesses to the list of extremists and terrorists. Most of the people on the list are believers between 40 and 60 years old.
• On June 7, 2022, the European Court of Human Rights declared the ban on Jehovah's Witnesses organizations and the subsequent persecution of believers illegal. From the point of view of the ECHR, the decision to liquidate the organization and criminal cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses is based on an overly broad definition of “extremism”, which in Russian legislation “can be applied to absolutely peaceful forms of expression.”