Jehovah's Witness from Karachay-Cherkessia Rimma Popova was sentenced to four and a half years of suspended imprisonment. This is reported by a portal covering the persecution of believers of this denomination.
The Circassian City Court found her guilty of participating in the activities of an extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and inducing such activities (Part 1.1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code); the verdict was passed on January 20. “I suffered a heart attack from the worries,” said the convict. The prosecutor asked to give her a real sentence.
According to the official version, from 2018 to April 2023, Popova “carried out recruiting conversations, convincing citizens of the need to accept the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses, promoting its superiority over others, organizing meetings and services, at which she conducted sermons and classes on studying the foundations of illegal religious activities and literature." As a result, writes the Investigative Committee, the believer “managed to persuade her acquaintance to participate in a prohibited organization.”
A criminal case against Popova was opened in October 2023, although a search of her place was carried out in June of the same year. Initially, she was placed under house arrest, but later the measure of restraint was softened to a ban on certain actions. The woman was prohibited from leaving the house from 21 to 6, using the Internet and communicating with witnesses in the case. In April 2024, the Investigative Committee announced the completion of the investigation into Popova’s case, and the case was transferred to court.
- 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 lawyer Tatyana Glushkova, these changes allow courts to terminate criminal cases initiated against former members of liquidated religious organizations (for example, Jehovah's Witnesses).