FOUR ASTRAKHAN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CONVICTED IN CASE REGARDING EXTREMISM
Kavkazskii Uzel, 25 October 2021
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A court in Astrakhan issued sentences of from 3.5 to 8 years in a penal colony to four Jehovah's Witnesses, having found them guilty of arranging, participating in, and financing an extremist organization.
As Kavkazskii Uzel has written, in June 2020 four persons in Astrakhan were arrested, who, according to information of security agents, were directing an underground cell of a forbidden religious organization. On 31 May 2021 investigators reported that the case had been delivered to a court.
The court established that in the period from July 2017 to June 2020, the defendants, who were the actual leaders of a local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses of the city of Astrakhan, arranged meetings while knowing about the ban on its activity in Russia. The court also agreed with the conclusions of the investigation that they conducted propaganda of the superiority of their religious teaching and engaged in the distribution of extremist literature. According to information of the investigation, the Astrakhan Jehovah's Witnesses, who did not want to be exposed, employed conspiratorial measures, including the use of video conferencing links, and they also collected money for purposes of financing the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses* in Russia.
By the court's verdict, three defendants received punishment in the form of eight years incarceration in a correctional penal colony of medium security, with restriction on liberty for a term of one year. Yet another woman member of the organization was given 3.5 years in a medium security colony, with loss of the right to engage in activity connected with leading and participating in the work of a public organization for a period of three years, a report on the website of the Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for Astrakhan oblast says. Within the framework of the investigation of the criminal case, siloviki conducted 27 searches in which they confiscated communication equipment, computers, and literature of extremist contents, the report says.
Information on the website of the Memorial Center for Rights** indicates that the case involved Rustam Diarov, Sergei Klikunov, and the married couple Olga and Evgeny Ivanov. They were found guilty on the basis of parts 1 and 2 of article 282.2 of the CC RF (arranging the activity of an extremist organization) and part 1 of article 282.3 of the CC RF (financing extremist activity).
Part 1 of article 282.2 of the CC RF (arranging the activity of an extremist organization) provides for up to 10 years of imprisonment and part 2 of the same article (participation in the activity of an extremist organization) provides for up to six years of imprisonment. Part 1 of article 282.3 of the CC RF (financing extremist activity) provides for up to eight years of imprisonment.
*396 Russian organizations of the Jehovah's Witnesses were ruled to be extremist and their activity in Russia was prohibited by decision of a court.
** The organization was entered by the Russian Ministry of Justice into the register of non-commercial organizations performing the function of a foreign agent. (tr. by PDS, posted 26 October 2021)
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