IN SARATOV
SECOND SENTENCE OF JEHOVAH'S
WITNESSES TO REAL PRISON TIME ISSUED
Jehovah's
Witnesses in Russia, 19
September 2019
On 19 September
2019, Judge Dmitry Larin
of the Lenin district court of Saratov sentenced six residents
of the city to
various prison terms based on their religious confession. Such a
harsh sentence
for faith in Jehovah was the second in the history of
contemporary Russia.
The Lenin
district court of Saratov
ordered to sentence Konstantin Bazhenov and Aleksei Budenchuk to
3 years, 6
months imprisonment; Feliks Makhammadiev, to 3 years; and Roman
Gridasov,
Gennady German, and Aleksei Miretsky, to 2 years. Also all were
sentenced
additionally to a penalty of prohibition to occupy a leadership
position in
public organizations for a term of 5 years and restriction of
liberty for one
year. All were charged on the basis of part 1 of article 282.2
of the Criminal
Code of the RF (arranging the activity of an extremist
organization). The
defendants were placed in custody in the courtroom for
transportation to a
SIZO.
The court
ignored the fact that in 30
volumes of the criminal case there is not a single victim nor a
single negative
consequence of the alleged "extremist activity" of the
defendants.
The entire logic of the accusation was built on the speculative
thesis that
faith in God is "continuation of the activity of an extremist
organization." As a consequence of such an approach, instead of
searching
for and proving the guilt of the defendants, the prosecutor's
office was busy
"proving" their profession of a certain religion, while no
religion
is forbidden in Russia. After "proving" the religious confession
of
the defendants, which they did not conceal, the investigation
suggested to automatically
interpret this fact as the activity of a banned legal entity.
The absurdity of
this logic did not embarrass the court, and he equated peaceful
believers with
dangerous criminals. Earlier, Konstantin Bazhenov, Aleksei
Budenchuk, and
Feliks Makhammadiev had already spent almost a year in the SIZO.
All of the
accused are ordinary residents of Saratov who had not been
previously convicted
and all of them have families. Two children of Aleksei Budenchuk
are still in
school. Konstantin Bazhenov is a mason by profession, Feliks
Makhammadiev is a
hairdresser, Roman Gridasov is a construction engineer, Gennady
German is an
artist, and Aleksei Miretsky is a kandidat of economics. In
their final word,
the believers quoted the Bible and noted that they do not hold a
grudge against
their persecutors.
The sentence in
the case of the six
Saratovans was the sixth guilty verdict for professing the
religion of
Jehovah's Witnesses in modern Russia. Before this, Dennis
Christensen, Sergei
Skrynnikov, Alexander Soloviev, Valery Moskalenko and 16
believers in Taganrog
were sentenced to various measures of punishment. Only Dennis
Christensen is in
a penal colony at the present time; his appeal has been accepted
for
consideration in the European Court of Human Rights. The list of
Russians who
have been convicted for faith in Jehovah has grown sharply and
consists of 26
persons, and the number of those imprisoned for this "crime" has
grown from 1 to 7.
The convicts
insist that they have
nothing to do with extremist. The defense attorneys intend to
appeal the unjust
sentence. (tr. by PDS, posted 20 September 2019)
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