JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN TAGANROG TELL COURT ABOUT ABSENCE OF EXTREMISM IN THEIR ACTIONS
by Olesia Dianova
Kavkazskii
Uzel, 22 August 2015
During questioning, seven defendants in the case of the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Taganrog called themselves innocent and declared that they are being persecuted for religious convictions.
As Kavkazskii Uzel wrote, according to the account of the investigation, after the prohibition of a Rostov provincial court in September 2009 on activity of the Taganrog congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, the accused continued to conduct prayer services and to study literature that had been ruled extremist.
On 30 July 2014, a Taganrog city court sentenced four of the defendants to a suspended sentence, and they and another three members of the congregation were fined, although they were released from payment of the fine because of the lapse of time. Another nine defendants were acquitted. All 16 figures in the case and the prosecutor's office filed appeals of the sentence. A second consideration of the case is now going on.
At the sessions that were held from 17 to 21 August, six defendants were questioned and the questioning of a seventh was begun, one of the lawyers for the accused, Anton Omelchenko, told a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.
"All of the defendants being questioned presented in detail their arguments that they are not guilty. The first one questioned was Nikolai Trotsiuk. He is a third generation Jehovah's Witness. He was baptized in the 1970s and was persecuted in the USSR. Trotsiuk described how his home was searched during the soviet period. He described how he had been rehabilitated, and he did not expect that there would be such persecutions now, as then, simply because he is a believing person," the lawyer said.
The second to be questioned was defendant Yury Baklushin, who, according to the investigation's account enticed residents of Taganrog into the Jehovah's Witnesses organization.
"In court he gave testimony that everyone, even minors, who in the opinion of the investigation were lured into the faith by Baklushin, began attending the Jehovah's Witnesses back before he did. In addition, Baklushin described how in his speech before believers he talked about how biblical commandments help people in resolving many problems. For example, he talked about strengthening marriage, how it is necessary to display love through which all problems are resolved; that is, he said that divorce is not a way out of the situation. But in the face of all this it was destruction of the family that the investigation accused him of," the lawyer noted.
A number of Jehovah's Witnesses' publications, in particular brochures "Humanity in search for God," "What does the Bible really teach?" and "The Bible, God's word or man's?" have been entered into the federal list of extremist materials. A complete version of the list is accessible in the "Information" section on Kavkazskii Uzel.
Anton Omelchenko said that the next to be questioned in court was 70-year-old defendant, a veteran of labor, Aleksei Koptev.
"Koptev worked at a single enterprise for 40 years. The investigation accused him of allegedly encouraging people to work only a partial working day. Koptev stated in court that this could not be reality, because all his life he worked a full working day and never pronounced such words," Omelchenko stated.
After Koptev, the court questioned defendant Alexander Skvortsov, the lawyer said. "Skvortsov stated that the accused persons simply read the Bible, and they are charged with extremist statements," the lawyer quoted the defendant.
The next one called for questioning was the son of the witness Nikolai Trotsiuk, named Sergei. "He explained a note in the investigation that he discussed psalms with believers, including a prayer that is known to Orthodox believers, 'He whole dwells in help.' He is accused of extremist statements based on extremist publications," the lawyer Omelchenko explained.
The sixth to be questioned was defendant Roman Voloshuk, who described in court his father, who also was a Jehovah's Witness. "His father moved to a village outside Taganrog after he was persecuted in Ukraine because he was a Jehovah's Witness. Roman himself has attended services of Jehovah's Witnesses since the 1980s but he does not have anything to do with the local religious organization," Anton Omelchekno said.
The questioning of the seventh defendant, Andrei Goncharov, began on 21 August, and the trial still is not ended. "In the 1980s his mother became acquainted with Jehovah's Witnesses, and he also has known them since that time. He also gave examples of how faith affected him personally. Before faith, he was a hooligan and debauchee, but with his acceptance of faith he became a businessman and he has a good family, a daughter," the lawyer reported the contents of the questioning.
Omelchenko said that the statements of the defendants lasted over two hours, sometimes taking up half a session.
"There still is a question how much the prosecutor will question: for some a lot and for some a little. After the questioning of the defendants there will be the supplementary investigation stage. In the first trial, at this stage the prosecutors began bringing in police for repeat questioning. How long this will last is unknown. The judge thinks that the preliminary conclusion of the judicial review will be October," Omelchenko explained.
Kavkazskii Uzel still has not obtained comments from a representative of the prosecutor's office regarding the contents of the questioning of the defendants. (tr. by PDS, posted 25 August 2015)
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