The case against a Jehovah's Witness from Kostroma went to court

On March 1, the Kostroma court received a case against a pensioner, a local Jehovah's Witness. The SOVA Information and Analytical Center drew attention to this message from the press service of the Dimitrovsky District Court.

As SOVA writes, we are talking about Valentina Samus. According to the court, she is 67 years old; according to the portal on the persecution of believers, she is 73 years old.

The pensioner is accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). She is charged with keeping Jehovah's Witnesses literature at home and distributing it. According to investigators, he also provided his apartment for meetings and religious meetings of followers of the Jehovah's Witnesses, collective worship services and sermons, and she herself participated in them. Thus, the investigation believes, the believer organized the activities of the banned religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Kostroma.

According to the Jehovah's Witnesses portal, the case against Samus was opened on February 17, 2022. In March of the same year, four residents of Kostroma were searched (probably Samus was among them). Electronic devices, Bibles, religious literature and personal notes were confiscated from them.

• In April 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. Later, all organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were added to the list of prohibited ones. After this, a stream of criminal cases against representatives of the confession 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 80 years old. They are under investigation or sentenced to various punishments under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization or participation in the activities of an extremist organization).