In Primorye, four Jehovah’s Witnesses were sentenced to terms ranging from 4 to 7 years

In the Primorsky Krai, the Spassky District Court sentenced four Jehovah’s Witnesses to terms of four to seven years on charges of organizing the activities of an extremist organization and recruiting for it. This is reported by the website “Jehovah’s Witnesses. Legal situation in Russia”.

Teacher Dmitry Malevany was sentenced to 7 years in prison (the maximum sentence under the article is 10 years), pensioners Alexey Trofimov and Olga Panyuta were sentenced to 6.5 and 4 years in prison, respectively. They were sent to Primorye SIZO-4. Another convict, Olga Opaleva, received 4.5 years of conditional imprisonment. In October 2019, she had a stroke in a convoy car.

The case against the residents of Spassk-Dalny was initiated back in 2018, they spent about a year under house arrest. They are accused of organizing activities in the city of the organization “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and of recruiting new members to it – by this accusation they understand gatherings of believers for reading the Bible and religious discussions.

During the trial and investigation, the defense repeatedly complained about violations. Thus, one of the evidences in the case were recordings of conversations made before the beginning of the alleged crime. The accused also claimed to have falsified their written statements.

• In June, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian authorities’ decisions to liquidate the church, ban its activities, and seize property violated the rights of believers. The court demanded that Russia take all the necessary measures so that the criminal prosecution of the witnesses was stopped, and those previously convicted for participating in the church’s activities were released. The decision of the ECtHR was made after the expulsion of Russia from the Council of Europe, Moscow is not going to implement it.
• In 2017, the Supreme Court of Russia recognized the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” as an extremist organization and banned its activities on the territory of the country. Subsequently, all legal entities of the organization were included in the list of extremist and prohibited. According to human rights activists, this was done without any evidence that the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses threaten citizens and the security of the Russian state.
• An hour later, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the recognition of Jehovah’s Witnesses extremists “nonsense.” He declared that they are “also Christians” and there is no reason to persecute them. Nevertheless, hundreds of criminal cases were initiated against the followers of the church.