KHABAROVSK
COURT
RETURNS CASE AGAINST JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES TO PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE
Judge
Vera Pismennaia
of the Industrialnyi district court of Khabarovsk ordered the
return to the
prosecutor's office of the case against Jehovah's Witnesses
Stanislav Kim,
Nikolai Polevodov, Tatiana and Vitaly Zhuk, Svetlana Sedovaia,
and Main
Karpushkina. The believers are charged on the basis of the
article concerning
arranging the activity of an extremist organization (art. 282.2
of CC). This is
reported on the website Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.
The case
was returned
because of errors committed by the investigation, which cannot
be
eliminated in the trial. According to the website report, the
materials of the
case lack confirmation that the believers arranged the activity
of an extremist
organization: for example, there are no indications of who,
where, when, and
how this activity was agreed upon and coordinated.
The case
has been
under consideration of a court since July of 2019.
On 2
July, a Khabarovsk
territorial court left without changes the sentence of the
Jehovah's Witnesses
Stanislav Kim and Nikolai Polevodov. In February, a court had
sentenced
Polevodov and Kim to a two-year suspended sentence and two years
of probation
on the charge of participating in the activity of an extremist
organization
(part 2 of article 282.2 of the CC).
Polevodov
and Kim
also are charged in another case on the basis of the article
concerning
arranging the activity of an extremist organization (part 1 of
article 282.2 of
the CC). They were arrested by troops of OMON and investigators
of the F.S.B.
during a meeting in a rented café in November 2018. The meeting
was attended by
about fifty persons. Polevodov and Kim, along with another
Jehovah's Witness,
Vitaly Zhuk, were sent to a SIZO but then they were released
under house
arrest. Polevodov later was released on his own recognizance. A
total of six
people are included in the case.
On 20
April 2017, the
Supreme Court ruled the Administrative Center of Jehovah's
Witnesses in Russia
to be an extremist organization, liquidated it, and banned its
activity on
Russian territory. In August, all organizations of Jehovah's
Witnesses were entered
into the list of forbidden organizations. Now their adherents
have become
subjects of criminal cases. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 August 2020)
Background article:
Two
more Jehovah's Witnesses convicted on faulty evidence
February 4, 2020
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