JEHOVAH'S
WITNESS
FROM DENMARK CONVICTED IN RUSSIA SENT TO SHIZO
Dennis
Christensen,
an adherent of the Jehovah's Witnesses (an organization ruled in
Russia to be
extremist and forbidden), who was convicted in Russia, has been
sent to a
punishment cell [SHtrafoi IZOliator—SHIZO] of penal colony No.
3, which is
located in the city of Lgov of Kursk oblast. This was reported
by Mediazona,
with reference to representatives of the religious organization
"Jehovah's
Witnesses in Russia."
This is
now the
second time when the Dane Christensen was put in the SHIZO: he
already was
there for 15 days in late June. At that time the administration
of the
correctional institution claimed that the believer allegedly was
in a dining
room at the wrong time and then he appeared in the barracks
without a jacket.
This
time Christensen
was sent to the cell after his refusal to work in the prison
factory because of
problems with his health. The sanctions applied to the believer
in the colony began
after a court substituted for him a fine of 400,000 rubles for
the unserved
time of punishment in the colony.
Christensen
was
arrested in May 2017, and in February of last year he was
sentenced to six
years in a penal colony on the basis of an article regarding
arranging the
activity of an organization that a court had ruled to be
extremist (part 1 of
article 282.2 of the CC). He acknowledged that he was an elder
in meetings of
the congregation.
Prosecution
of
Jehovah's Witnesses believers began three years ago after a
decision of the
Supreme Court finding this organization to be extremist. Since
then, criminal
cases have been opened against its adherents regularly and
several have
received real prison time. (tr. by PDS, posted 26 July 2020)
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