By RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities

A court in Russia's Far Eastern Amur region has replaced a four-year prison term with a one-year suspended sentence for 71-year-old Jehovah's Witness Vladimir Balabkin after changing his indictment from organizing an extremist group's activities to taking part in such activities. Balabkin, who has been diagnosed with cancer, left the courtroom a free man on December 19. On the same day, another court in the nearby Primorye region sent the case of another Jehovah’s Witness, Dmitry Barmakin, for retrial. He had been sentenced to eight years in April on extremism charges. Russia banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017 and designated them as an extremist organization.