On October 11, the Sevastopol City Court confirmed the verdict of Jehovah's Witnesses Vladimir Sakada, Evgeniy Zhukov and Vladimir Maladyka. This was reported by the portal “Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. Legal situation."
According to the defenders, the sentence of the believers “clearly demonstrated that if they do not renounce their religious views, they will continue to be prosecuted.”
In October 2022, three believers were found guilty under the article on organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced to 6 years in a general regime colony. Men were also banned from engaging in educational activities for seven years. In addition, the court sentenced them to one year of restriction of freedom after their release.
The Crimean Process reported that the charges were based on video recordings of four religious services, which were filmed by an FSB officer embedded in the organization. The prosecutor asked the believers for seven and a half years in prison.
Three believers were detained after searches in October 2020. Sakada and Maladyka were in pre-trial detention for six months, and Zhukov for seven and a half months. The accused were later released under house arrest.
Also involved in this case was Jehovah's Witness Igor Schmidt. In October 2021, he was sentenced to six years in prison under the article on organizing the activities of an extremist organization.
- 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.”
- In October 2021, the Plenum of the Supreme Court clarified the application of “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 - OVD-Info ).” 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).