A criminal case has been opened against a local Jehovah's Witness in Chuvashia

In Chuvashia, a criminal case was opened against Jehovah's Witnesses, the resource “No to Extremism” affiliated with the security forces.

reports The man is accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code). He is accused of preaching the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses since 2019.

The name of the person involved in the case is not reported. It is also not known whether any preventive measure was chosen for him.

• 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.” admitted