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Four Jehovah's Witnesses Detained in Sochi, Among them a Woman
Krasnodar TerritoryOn March 24, 2021, 4 believers were detained and placed in a temporary detention center in Sochi. Two days later, the court ruled to detain 54-year-old Vladimir Deshko and 48-year-old Tatyana Velizhanina in jail. 54-year-old Yuriy Logininskiy and 56-year-old Yuriy Moskalyov were placed under house arrest.
According to available data, the believers are accused of “involvement in the activities of an extremist organization” (part 1.1 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) simply because they had talked with local residents about God. FSB officers along with the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Krasnodar Territory took part in the arrest of the believers; the Investigative Committee of Russia is engaged in the investigation of the criminal case.
Vladimir Deshko and Tatyana Velizhanina will remain in the pre-trial detention center until at least April 18, 2021.
This is the eighth criminal case in the Krasnodar Territory. In December 2020, residents of Sochi, Vyacheslav Popov and Nikolay Kuzichkin were found guilty of organizing extremist activities. In February 2021, a 63-year-old Jehovah's Witness from the village of Kholmskaya, Aleksandr Ivshin, received an unprecedentedly harsh sentence: 7 and a half years in prison for his faith.