The JAO reaffirms the sentence of Jehovah's Witness Monis

Svetlana Monis from Birobidzhan received a suspended sentence under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code.

On February 28, 2023, the court of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAO) considered the appeal against the sentence of Jehovah's Witness Svetlana Monis and left it unchanged. This verdict was passed on October 31, 2022 by the Birobidzhansky District Court under Part 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (participation in the activities of an extremist organization), assigning Monis a sentence of two and a half years of suspended imprisonment. She received the same punishment under a previous sentence, which was later overturned.

Monis was initially sentenced in February 2021, and the court sentenced her to a fine of 10 thousand rubles (below the lower penalty limit for this charge). However, in May, the EAO court upheld the prosecutor’s appeal and increased the sentence to two and a half years probation. However, in December 2021, the Ninth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction in Vladivostok sent the case for a new appeal hearing. As a result, in March 2022, the EAO court overturned the verdict and sent the case for a new trial by a different court.

Let us note that punishments below the lowest limit were also imposed on believers Larisa Artamonova , Elena Reino-Chernyshova and Yulia Kaganovich, and the appellate court similarly toughened their sentences by assigning suspended sentences . In their cases, the cassation court did not overturn the verdicts.

The community of Jehovah's Witnesses in Birobidzhan was recognized as 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 Federationapproved this decision. We believe that bans on communities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are unlawful and are a manifestation of discrimination. In June 2022, the ECHR issued a ruling on the complaint of Jehovah's Witnesses, in which it recognized that the ban on their materials and organizations and the persecution of believers contradict the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and demanded that criminal cases under Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code against Jehovah's Witnesses and release believers in prison.

Sources

• An appeal in Birobidzhan again confirmed the sentence of Svetlana Monis. She received a 2.5 year suspended sentence for her faith. Message from Jehovah's Witnesses. 2023. March 2.