Four Jehovah's Witnesses from the Amur region were again sentenced to more than six years in prison

The Tyndinsky District Court of the Amur Region sentenced Jehovah's Witnesses Vladimir Bukin, Valery Slashchev and Sergei Yuferov to six years and four months in a general regime colony, and their co-religionist Mikhail Burkov to six years and two months in prison. The Jehovah's Witnesses website is about this.

reports Believers were taken into custody in the courtroom.

On June 16, Bukin, Slashchev and Yuferov were charged with six and a half years in prison, Burkov - six years and two months. All four believers are charged with organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). In addition, everyone except Burkov is accused under the article on involvement in extremist activities (Part 1.1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).

requested The case against Jehovah's Witnesses was opened in November 2019 - an FSB agent secretly visited meetings of believers. According to investigators, they conducted worship services and “Bible studies at home” in 2018–2019. The prosecution called the conversations of Bukin, Yuferov and Slashchev with an informant for the security forces D. Nurakov, who expressed to them his desire to become a Jehovah's Witness, as involvement in extremist activities.

In October 2022, the Tyndinsky District Court of four Jehovah's Witnesses to real terms. At that time, Bukin, Slashchev and Yuferov were sentenced to six and a half years each, and Burkov - six years and two months in prison. However, two months later the regional court made this decision, sending the case for review. After this, all four were released from the pre-trial detention center on their own recognizance.

sentenced canceled Believers were taken to pre-trial detention center No. 1 in the Amur region, website “Jehovah's Witnesses. Legal situation."

June 26 reports - In 2017, the Supreme Court “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” was an extremist organization, liquidated it 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. recognized introduced the flow introduced - In October 2021, the Plenum of the Supreme Court applied the “anti-extremist” legislation. The document, in particular, states that actions “consisting solely of the exercise of the right to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, including through individual or joint professing of religion, performing divine services or other religious rites and ceremonies, do not in themselves constitute a crime , provided for in Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (Participation in the activities of an extremist organization -).” According to OVD-Info lawyer Tatyana Glushkova, these changes allow courts to terminate criminal cases brought against former members of liquidated religious organizations (for example, Jehovah's Witnesses). explained OVD-Info