In Apatity, the court fined a Jehovah's Witness half a million rubles

On March 23, a court in the Murmansk region fined Jehovah's Witness Denis Merkulov 500 thousand rubles. He was found guilty 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 portal “Jehovah's Witnesses. Legal situation in Russia".

The decision on this was made by the Apatity City Court. The charges were based on the testimony of a man who discussed the Bible with Merkulov and later wrote a denunciation against him to the FSB.

For the believer, the case began with a search in 2021. Then the security forces broke into Merkulov’s home, knocking out the double-glazed windows and the iron door with sledgehammers. The search of the apartment, garage and car lasted about 8 hours, after which they were taken for questioning to the Investigative Committee. First, Merkulov was placed under house arrest, then two months later the preventive measure was changed to a ban on certain actions - but the tracking bracelet was not removed from him.

According to investigators, from April 2020 to March 2021, Merkulov organized a sermon with other believers in Apatity via conference call. During the sermon, investigators believe, its participants studied religious literature, including extremist literature. In addition, the believer “committed actions aimed at inducing, recruiting and involving new members to participate in the illegal activities of a banned religious organization.”

“I am convinced, Your Honor, that I am not being tried for a real crime, but solely for my peaceful religion, faith in God, based on the Bible. It was thanks to the Bible that my life changed for the better. That’s why I [study] it still and am happy to share what I learn with interested people,” said Denis Merkulov in his last word.

• 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.”