In Sevastopol, Businessman Igor Shmidt Was Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Reading the Bible

On October 22, 2021, judge of the Gagarinsky District Court of the city of Sevastopol, Lyudmila Tumaykina, found 49-year-old Igor Shmidt guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist organization and sentenced him to 6 years in prison for his faith in Jehovah God.

The believer was sent to a pre-trial detention center after a raid in Sevastopol, where security forces searched at least 9 local residents in October 2020. The case against him was initiated by the senior investigator for especially important cases of the Investigative Department of the Directorate of the FSB of Russia for the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol Sergey Bosiyev on September 24, 2020. The investigation lasted six months, all this time Igor was in a pre-trial detention center, then he was transferred under house arrest. On March 30, 2021, the case was brought to court. During the trial, the prosecution did not present a single victim to the court. Despite this, the prosecutor asked the court to imprison Shmidt for 7 years.

According to Igor Shmidt, the investigation, expert examinations and accusations were aimed only at proving that he was Jehovah's Witness, allegedly “a dangerous sect for society,” but no evidence of its danger was provided. The believer referred to the words of the religious scholar Sergey Ivanenko, who wrote several books about Jehovah's Witnesses: “The epithet 'sectarian' is usually applied to gloomy, aggressive, and embittered people. Jehovah's Witnesses, in my opinion, are the complete opposite of this image. They behave openly, give the impression of free people, open to the modern world and striving to make people better through their preaching of the Bible. "

Already 16 of Jehovah's Witnesses from Crimea have been prosecuted for their faith. In March 2020, Sergey Filatov was sentenced to 6 years in prison, in June 2020, the Supreme Court of Crimea toughened the punishment assigned to Artem Gerasimov and sentenced him to 6 years in prison for talking on spiritual topics, and in September 2021, 6.5 years in prison received another Crimean Jehovah's Witness — Viktor Stashevskiy.

Both in Russia and abroad, human rights activists unanimously condemn the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses. The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe states: “Russia's failure to uphold religious freedom is yet another unforgivable violation of Moscow's OSCE commitments. People who practice their faith peacefully should never be harassed, fined, or imprisoned. The court order to confiscate the property of Jehovah's Witnesses adds humiliation to the persecution. It is hoped that this case will be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights ”.