In the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, a criminal case has been opened against two Jehovah's Witnesses from the village of Zelenchukskaya for participating in the activities of an extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the regional Investigative Committee on its official website.
The names of the believers are not indicated. The case against the women is being investigated by the Zelenchuk inter-district investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the region. They are accused of having ties to the "Local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses of the city of Nevinnomyssk."
According to the investigation, the suspects “ organized meetings and religious services, where they preached and taught classes on the basics of illegal religious activity and literature, and kept technical equipment, including mobile devices, at their place of residence, with the help of which they continued to study and propagate the advantages of followers of the prohibited religious teaching.”
In 2018 and 2020, security forces from Nevinnomyssk in the neighboring Stavropol Territory conducted mass searches of local Jehovah's Witnesses. In April 2023, the Nevinnomyssk City Court sentenced one of the believers to six years probation in a case of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).
At the end of May 2022, the Investigative Committee dropped the criminal prosecution of seven more Jehovah's Witnesses from Nevinnomyssk. One of them, 90-year-old Rimma Vaschenko, died in January 2021 while under investigation.
- In 2017, the Supreme Court declared the "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" an "extremist organization," liquidated it, and banned its activities in Russia. All Jehovah's Witnesses organizations were added to the list of banned organizations, after which a stream of criminal cases against believers began . Rosfinmonitoring 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 the ages of 40 and 60.
- In October 2021, the Plenum of the Supreme Court clarified the application of 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 practice of religion, worship or other religious rites and ceremonies, do not in themselves constitute a crime under Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (Participation in the activities of an extremist organization - OVD-Info )." According to lawyer Tatyana Glushkova, these changes allow courts to terminate criminal cases brought against former members of liquidated religious organizations (for example, Jehovah's Witnesses).