In Saransk, at least 10 searches took place in the homes of Jehovah's Witnesses. Three believers were sent to pre-trial detention center

On February 14, in Saransk, security forces conducted at least ten searches in the houses of Jehovah's Witnesses, and three believers were taken into custody. The website “Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia” reports this.

Mikhail Shevchuk, Artem Velichko and Ivan Neverov were placed in pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Saransk. A criminal case was opened against them under the article on organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).

During the searches, Bibles, equipment, notebooks with recipes and biblical quotes, as well as three foreign passports were confiscated from one of the families. The security forces threatened the woman that “her daughters would feel bad” if she did not testify against herself and her co-religionists.

From another family of believers in the village of Zvezdny, which is located near Saransk, law enforcement officers seized videotapes, notebooks with poems, two international passports, CDs with photographs and a recording of a children's performance. They also threw powder from a fire extinguisher at the owners' dog, after which she needed veterinary attention. The woman was threatened that they would send her to a pre-trial detention center if she did not testify against herself and her loved ones.

• 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.”