IN BELARUS, JEHOVAH'S WITNESS FROM RUSSIA ARRESTED FOR FIRST TIME
Belorusskii partisan, 26 February 2020
The director of the Human Constanta rights advocacy center, Enira Bronitskaia, told Radio Liberty that a Jehovah's Witness from Russia was arrested on 21 February in Belarus. He is in the SIZO in Vitebsk. He is Nikolai N. According to the website of the Jehovah's Witnesses, a criminal case against him was opened in Russia on 31 January 2019 in Khanty-Mansi autonomous district. In Russia, the Jehovah's Witnesses are ruled to be an extremist organization and they are being prosecuted in accordance with the Criminal Code. Detained believers have reported about cruel tortures in Russian police departments.
"His name is on the international wanted list. A criminal case against him was opened in Russia and a decision was made to keep him in custody. He left, and he was arrested in Belarus," Enira Bronitskaia says. "At the present time, the question of his transfer to Russia is being considered. Our prosecutor's office will make a decision whether to extradite him."
Radio Liberty has turned to the press service of the M.V.D. [ministry of internal affairs] for confirmation of this information. A representative of the press service said that the information will be checked.
The usual practice in such cases between Russia and Belarus is to transfer the detainee.
In Russia, Jehovah's Witnesses are considered an extremist organization. In Belarus, the community of Jehovah's Witnesses is officially registered. There are more than 6,000 believers.
"We are clarifying information that he could be shown to have refugee status. In any case, this should suspend his extradition, since this petition will be reviewed. Most likely it will be filed because there is a political reason that gives it this basis," the rights advocate explains the situation.
However Bronitskaia warns that in all the history of Belorussian law on refugees, Russians have never been given refugee status.
According to the Russian Memorial Human Rights Center, no fewer than 200 Jehovah's Witnesses have been prosecuted on the basis of article 282.2 of the CC RF, "Arranging the activity of a religious organization about which the decision has been made for liquidation because of conduct of extremist activity." The sanction on this article provides for up to ten years imprisonment. As Memorial reports, as of today, at least 15 Jehovah's Witnesses are in custody and 24 are under house arrest. Another 163 have received other measures of restriction. (tr. by PDS, posted 26 February 2020)
FOR
FIRST TIME,
BELARUS ARRESTS BELIEVER WANTED IN RUSSIA FOR BELONGING TO
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Officials
of law
enforcement agencies in Belarus arrested a 36-year-old Russian,
Nikolai
Makhalichev, on 21 February. During inspection of his documents
he was told
that Russia had put him on an international wanted list, since
he professes a
"forbidden religion." Three days later, the prosecutor sent him
to
SIZO-2 in Vitebsk, according to a source among Russian Jehovah's
Witnesses.
A
criminal case
against Nikolai Makhalichev was opened in Russia on 31 January
2019 by
investigative agencies of the city of Urai (Khanty-Mansi
autonomous district).
During a
trip in
Belarus, Nikolai Makhalichev was stopped by police to check his
documents. He
was told that Russia had put him on the wanted list. The
believer found himself
in a temporary detention cell in the city of Gorodok (Vitebsk
oblast).
On 24
February, a
deputy prosecutor of the Gorodok district, junior counselor of
justice Zaikin,
ordered to confine Nikolai Makhalichev in custody in SIZO-2 of
the directorate
of internal affairs of the Vitebsk oblast executive committee.
In his order,
the Belorussian prosecutor maintains, citing a Russian court,
that Makhalichev
acted "deliberately for reasons of religious intolerance and
from
extremist motives, expressed in the promotion of the superiority
of the
adherents of the religious teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses over
other
persons," and he also engaged in the "profession and
dissemination of
ideology and faith."
In view
of the fact
that Belorussian authorities may extradite him to Russia,
Nikolai Makhalichev
applied for granting to him political asylum in Belarus and he
also sent an
appeal to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights.
Makhalichev considers
the order of the Belorussian prosecutor to place him in custody
to be illegal
and he will appeal it in a Belorussian court.
In April
2017, the
Russian Supreme Court ruled all 396 religious organizations of
Jehovah's
Witnesses in Russia to be extremist and liquidated them. However
in the
republic of Belarus, the activity of this confession is not
considered to be
extremist and it is not restricted in any way. (tr. by PDS,
posted 26 February
2020)
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