The Zeya District Court of the Amur Region found three Jehovah's Witnesses guilty of participation in the activities of an extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced them to suspended sentences. This is reported by a portal covering the persecution of believers.
44-year-old Margarita Moiseenko was sentenced to three years of probation and restriction of freedom for ten months with a probationary period of three years, 51-year-old Elena Yatsyk - to two and a half years and eight months of restriction of freedom with a probationary period of two years, and 72-year-old Galina Yatsik received a suspended sentence of two years and restriction of freedom for six months with a probationary period of two years. Women were also given a three-year ban on the right to engage in activities related to leadership and participation in the work of public organizations.
“There is no corpus delicti in my actions, since their motive is love for God and love for people... My conscience is clear both before God and before the state,” Galina Yatsik noted during the meeting.
A case was brought against the women because of their presence at religious services. The believers were under recognizance not to leave.
In October 2020, searches were carried out in eight houses of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Amur region, which were supervised by the FSB. The case against Moiseenko, Yatsik and Yatsik was opened in November 2021. It went to court in March.
- 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.
- In June, the European Court of Human Rights declared the ban on Jehovah's Witnesses 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.”