Translated material
In Kirov, the court approved suspended sentences for six Jehovah's Witnesses
On October 4, the Kirov Regional Court confirmed the sentences of six Jehovah's Witnesses. This is a portal covering the persecution of believers of this denomination.
writes in June that the Pervomaisky District Court of Kirov found Evgeny and Andrey Suvorkov, Maxim Khalturin, Vladimir Korobeinikov, Vladimir Vasilyev and Polish citizen Andrzej Onischuk guilty under articles on organizing a religious association banned in Russia (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and on financing extremist activities (Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code).
It became known that Onishchuk was sentenced to six and a half years of suspended imprisonment, Suvorkov - six years and three months, Khalturin - six years and two months, Korobeinikov - three years and three months, Vasilyev - two and a half years. The verdicts came into force.
Speaking in court, Onischuk noted that he has lived by biblical principles for more than 30 years. “As a believer, I never even thought about extremism... My inner convictions do not allow me to speak out against the state system,” he added.
As a result, believers gathered in apartments to sing biblical songs, improve missionary skills, study forbidden religious literature, and also collected money - “more than 500 thousand rubles” - to pay rent for housing and “other premises” for meetings, bought equipment and transferred money to the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.”
versions Searches of believers took place in October 2018. After this, Onishchuk, Suvorkov, Khalturin and Korobeinikov were sent to a pre-trial detention center. From December 2018 to March 2019, four defendants were transferred from the pre-trial detention center to house arrest, and Andrzej Oniszczuk remained in custody until September 2019. Subsequently, all of them were under recognizance not to leave.
Initially, Yuri Geraskov was also involved in the case. In April 2020, he died from the disease.
- In 2017, the Supreme Court liquidated the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” extremist organization and banned its activities in Russia. All organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were included in the list of prohibited organizations, after which criminal cases began against believers. Rosfinmonitoring lists hundreds of Russian followers of Jehovah's Witnesses as extremists and terrorists. Most of the people on the list are believers between 40 and 60 years old. admitted introduced flow the - June 7, 2022, the European Court of Human Rights banning the organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses and the subsequent persecution of believers is 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.”