The appeal by Oryol Jehovah's Witness Sergei Skrynnikov against a fine of about 18 months' average local wages is due on 13 June at the same court which rejected Dennis Christensen's appeal. At least 189 Jehovah's Witnesses are facing criminal prosecution across Russia. Among them are seven men tortured in Surgut in February.
Skrynnikov was initially investigated alongside Dennis Christensen, but investigators opened a separate criminal case against him in March 2018. The evidence against him
came from the FSB security service's investigation of Christensen. According to an Investigative Committee statement of 20 February 2018, Skrynnikov was accused of attending a Jehovah's Witness meeting at which he made "a public speech containing propaganda of the banned organisation".
Under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 2, Skrynnikov could have received a fine of up to 600,000 Roubles, compulsory labour for up to four years, or a prison term of two to six years.
Skrynnikov lodged an appeal against his conviction on 9 April 2019. This is due to be considered at Oryol Regional Court on 13 June, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18.
Skrynnikov has been under travel restrictions since 13 March 2018. On 27 March 2018, investigators had his name added to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) "List of Terrorists and Extremists", whose accounts banks are obliged to freeze, apart from small transactions.
Ongoing trial in North Caucasus
The criminal trial of Yury Viktorovich Zalipayev (born 8 October 1962) at Maysky District Court (Republic of Kabardino-Balkariya) continued throughout April with the questioning of defence witnesses, and into May with the examination of audio recordings of religious meetings in which Zalipayev participated. Jehovah's Witnesses say that there was no evidence in these recordings of any expressions of religious hatred.
Judge Yelena Kudryavtseva has also examined the phone records of prosecution witnesses, which, Jehovah's Witnesses state, suggest that they "acted under the direction" of an FSB security service officer and only attended religious meetings on his instructions.
Zalipayev has undergone 24 hearings so far, with the next due on 3 June 2019.
Zalipayev remains accused of "Public calls for extremist activity" (Criminal Code Article 280, Part 1), which carries a maximum punishment of four years' imprisonment plus a ban on specific activity.
Zalipayev has already been acquitted under Criminal Code Article 282, Part 1 ("Actions directed at the incitement of hatred [nenavist] or enmity [vrazhda], as well as the humiliation of an individual or group of persons on the basis of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, attitude to religion, or social group") in connection with the partial decriminalisation of this offence.
Although prosecutors had themselves requested that the Criminal Code Article 282, Part 1 charge be dropped, they still appealed against the judge's decision to recognise Zalipayev's right to rehabilitation and compensation. The Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkariya, however, upheld the lower court's ruling on 15 March 2019.
Zalipayev remains under travel restrictions, but his name has not been added to the Rosfinmonitoring "List of Terrorists and Extremists".
Torture in Surgut
Seven Jehovah's Witnesses have stated that they were tortured at the Investigative Committee building in Surgut (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region) after being arrested on 15 February.
When they refused to give any information on fellow believers, investigators subjected them to electric shocks, beatings, and attempted suffocation. Investigators continued to question them throughout: "Where are Jehovah's Witness meetings held? Who attends the meetings? What are the elders' names? What is your mobile phone password?"
According to the jw-russia website, after the only legal representative in the room left, "Agents put a bag over the victims' heads, sealed it with tape, tied their hands behind their backs, and beat them," Jehovah's Witnesses stated. "Then, after stripping the Witnesses naked and dousing them with water, the agents shocked them with stun guns. This sadistic torture lasted for about two hours."
All those who state they were tortured have now been released from detention. They have had their injuries documented by doctors, and are seeking redress for their treatment.
The United Nations (UN) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which Russia (as the Soviet Union) ratified in 1987, defines torture as: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity".
Under Article 6 of the Convention, Russia is obliged to arrest any person suspected on good grounds of having committed torture. Under Article 4, Russia is obliged to try them under criminal law which makes "these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature". No such arrests or prosecutions of the torturers, or those who facilitated the torture, are known to have happened.
Similarly, no arrests or prosecutions of the officials
who tortured Muslim prisoner of conscience Yevgeny Kim, or those who facilitated this , are known to have happened. However,
Kim himself was deprived of his Russian citizenship, leaving him stateless, and on 10 April 2019 – the day he completed his labour camp term – was fined and ordered deported to his country of birth .
The seven tortured Jehovah's Witnesses lodged an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on 25 February (Loginov and others versus Russia, Application No. 10618/19). The Court sent the Russian government a request for "factual information" on the case on 26 February. Russia "submitted the requested information" on 18 March, Court officials told Forum 18 on 27 May.
On 25 February, Andrey Babushkin, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council and chair of the Commission to Support Public Monitoring Commissions, demanded an end to the violent treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses in Surgut. In a statement to the General Prosecutor's Office, the head of the Investigative Committee, and the Public Monitoring Commission for the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, he insisted that a criminal case be opened against the investigators responsible.
After a subsequent internal investigation, the Investigative Committee refused to open a criminal case, but on 14 May, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region's Prosecutor's Office insisted on a fresh examination of the Jehovah's Witnesses' complaints.
Numbers facing prosecution continue to rise
The Surgut torture victims are among a total of 189 people now facing criminal prosecution (including Yury Zalipayev, already on trial), as armed raids on Jehovah's Witness homes have continued across Russia. Investigators have also arrested some people at their workplaces. Many have spent long periods in detention or under house arrest. None has yet been brought to court, although officials have informed several people that the investigations of their cases have now been completed.
For a full list of those facing criminal prosecution, see forthcoming F18News article.
Between January 2018 and May 2019, raids have taken place in the following 36 of Russia's 83 federal subjects (not counting Russian-occupied Crimea and Sevastopol): Amur, Arkhangelsk, Republic of Bashkortostan, Belgorod, Ivanovo, Jewish Autonomous Region, Kamchatka, Kemerovo, Khabarovsk, Republic of Khakasiya, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, Kirov, Kostroma, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, Republic of Mordoviya, Murmansk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Oryol, Penza, Perm, Primorye, Pskov, Rostov, Republic of Sakha-Yakutiya, Sakhalin, Saratov, Smolensk, Stavropol, Sverdlovsk, Republic of Tatarstan, Tomsk, Ulyanovsk, and Volgograd.
Forty-one women and 148 men are thought to have consequently been charged or named as suspects under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1 ("Organisation of"), or Part 2 ("Participation in") ("the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity"), or Part 1.1 ("Inclination, recruitment or other involvement of a person in an extremist organisation"), as well as Criminal Code Article 282.3, Part 1 ("Financing of extremist activity").
Twenty-eight people are known to be in pre-trial detention (three women, 25 men). Another 28 are under house arrest (four women, 24 men) and 73 under travel restrictions (28 women, 45 men). Officials have placed 16 people (one woman, 15 men) under specific sets of restrictions (such as not being allowed to go out at night or use the telephone or internet). One woman and three men are under an obligation to appear before investigators promptly when summoned. Thirty-five people (five women, 30 men) appear to be under no restrictions. The status of a further five men is currently unknown.
Officials have had 71 of these people added to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) "List of Terrorists and Extremists", whose assets banks are obliged to freeze, except for small transactions (Dennis Christensen and Sergei Skrynnikov also appear on the List).
Six people are on the Interior Ministry's federal wanted list as their whereabouts are unknown. Two of them – Fail Samigullovich Shangareyev (born 16 December 1960) and Olga Timofeyevna Sandu (born 31 March 1984) - are known to have left Russia.
Raids and arrests
The 2018 and 2019 raids have fallen into a pattern. Officials from a variety of agencies, including armed men in masks and body armour, arrive at Jehovah's Witnesses' addresses usually late at night or early in the morning. The occupants are sometimes made to lie on the floor or face the wall while the officers search their homes.
Officers then confiscate a similar range of possessions – phones, other electronic devices, bank cards, personal photographs, and books – and take the Jehovah's Witnesses, including children and the elderly, to a police station, FSB office, or Investigative Committee branch for questioning.
Such questioning can last for several hours, after which most people are released (some under travel restrictions). Others are kept in temporary detention until investigators decide whether to apply to a court for longer-term restrictive measures – they must do this within 48 hours of the initial detention.
A judge then decides whether to grant an investigator's request to place an individual in detention or under house arrest. An initial period of detention/house arrest lasts for two months from the date the criminal case was opened (usually on or shortly before the date of the raid). Towards the end of this period, investigators must apply to the court again to seek an extension. Detainees themselves may appeal to a higher court to have these restrictive measures lifted or reduced – on occasion, such appeals have been successful.
"Extremism" charges
Jehovah's Witnesses have largely been charged (or named as suspects) under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1 or Part 2 ("Organisation of" or "Participation in the activities of a banned extremist organisation"). For exercising their right to freedom of religion and belief by meeting for worship, they stand accused of "continuing the activities" of the Jehovah's Witness Administrative Centre and its subsidiary local organisations, all of which the Russian Supreme Court ruled "extremist" and ordered liquidated in April 2017.
Investigators have also charged a few individuals under Criminal Code Article 282.3, Part 1 ("Financing of extremist activity"), or Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1.1 ("Inclination, recruitment or other involvement of a person in an extremist organisation").
These prosecutions are happening despite the Supreme Court judges' insistence when they issued the ruling that it "does not amount to prohibition of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses as such", and despite the fact that the Russian government has twice claimed that the ban "does not contain a restriction or prohibition on individual profession of [Jehovah's Witness] teachings". (END)