Jehovah's Witness from Blagoveshchensk Adam Svarichevsky was sent to a cell-type facility (PKT) for two months. This was reported by the portal “Jehovah's Witnesses. Legal situation in Russia".
As the believer’s wife Galina said, the man was first sent to a punishment cell. After serving his sentence, he was transferred to strict conditions of detention (SUS), and on October 5 he was sent to the PKT until December 5.
One of the reasons for the penalties was that Svarichevsky did not put on a jacket and also lay down on the floor, as he could not stand for a long time due to back problems.
In addition, the woman clarified that Svarichevsky’s last long meeting with his family took place on August 1. Appointments scheduled for October were cancelled. She added that she has had no contact with her husband for a long time.
In December 2022, Svarichevsky and four other defendants in the case — Sergei Afanasyev, Sergei Kardakov, Anton Olshevsky and Sergei Ermilov — found guilty under the article on organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). Svarichevsky was sentenced to six years and three months in a general regime colony. He is serving his sentence in IK-31 in the Primorsky Territory.
In September 2019, a search was carried out in the house of Sergei Kardakov , at which time he became a defendant in a criminal case. A month later, security forces opened cases against Olshevsky and Ermilov. A year later, charges were brought against Svarichevsky and Afanasyev . All of them were under recognizance not to leave the place until the verdict.
- 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).