THREE ROSTOV JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES SENTENCED TO REAL TIME
A court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced to real prison terms in a penal colony of general regime the Jehovah's Witnesses Alexander Parkov, and Vilen and Arsen Avanesov, having found them guilty in a case regarding an extremist organization.
As Kavkazskii Uzel reported, Alexander Parkov and Vilen and Arsen Avanesov were arrested on 22 May 2019 in a case concerning arranging the activity of an extremist organization. Since them they have been detained in custody in a holding cell. The believers, including the elderly Vilen Avanesov, asked several times for a more lenient measure of restriction, but they were refused. The state prosecutor asked for seven years for Parkov and Vilen Avanesov and seven and a half years for Arsen Avanesov in a penal colony. The defendants themselves in their final speeches declared that they never were criminals.
Today the Lenin district court of Rostov-on-Don found all three believers guilty of arranging the activity of an extremist organization (part 1 of article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code). Arsen Avanesov was also charged with financing extremist activity (part 1 of article 282.3), but the court acquitted him on this article.
The elderly Vilen Avanesov was sentenced to six years in a penal colony of general regime and Alexander Parkov and Vilen Avanesov's son Arsen Avanesov received 6.5 years in a colony each, a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent who attended the trial reported. (tr. by PDS, posted 29 July 2021)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
https://www2.stetson.edu/religious-news/