A Court Sentences Tomsk-Based Yevgeniy Korotun, the Father of a Young Child, to Seven Years in Prison for Believing in Jehovah's God

On January 20, 2022, Svetlana Chebotareva, a judge of the Severskiy City Court of Tomsk Oblast, found 51-year-old Yevgeny Korotun guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist organization and sentenced him to 7 years in prison—the exact punishment the prosecutor requested.

The believer has been in the pre-trial detention center for 1.5 years already. One day in jail is equal to one and a half days in a penal colony, so if the court decision is not revised, Yevgeniy Korotun will be behind bars for more than 4.5 years.

The court also deprived the believer of the right to engage in educational activities in all types of educational institutions for five years, and imposed an additional restriction of liberty for one year: after serving his term, the believer during this time will not be allowed to attend and participate in mass, sports, and cultural events, change his place of residence and leave it at night.

In his final speech, Yevgeniy Korotun drew a parallel between first-century Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia: "On the whole, people have a positive view of first-century Christians. Their strong faith is cited as an example to others. They were persecuted, persecuted, accused of sectarianism, of betraying the faith of their fathers, of sowing confusion among the people, of urging them not to recognize the authority of Caesar . . . And the accusations against me are practically the same”.

Yevgeniy Korotun is a good citizen and family man. He worked honestly for many years, making furniture, decorative plastering, and working as a plumber. He retired in April 2020.

Korotun faced persecution because of his faith in July 2020, when members of the Investigative Committee and the Tomsk Region FSB invaded his family's apartment. The security forces nearly broke down the door, and during a lengthy search, Yevgeniy's wife and their 9-year-old son were held on the landing.

Immediately after the search, the man was arrested. He spent two days in the temporary detention center, after which he was placed under house arrest. After 54 days, the court decided to detain the believer in a pre-trial detention center, where he has been kept for over a year and a half. He had never been away from his wife for so long before his arrest, so the separation is hard for the couple. They also miss their son very much.

Yevgeniya, the wife of the believer, says: "I communicate with my husband through letters, and we have a date once a month. One of the difficulties is that not all letters get through, but that's not often. There was a period when the judge wouldn't let us have a date. And it's very hard to get a date: people wait in line even at night. Once I stood there for five hours. Sometimes all the people who came to make an appointment were kept outside even when it was minus 20 degrees below zero”.

The case against Korotun was initiated on July 13, 2020, by an investigator for particularly important cases of the investigation department of the Investigative Committee of the Tomsk Region in Seversk, A. N. Vyshegorodtsev. The investigation lasted more than eight months. The accusation was based on the testimony of the officer of the Federal National Guard Troops Service Yelena Studenova and Kira Klisheva. These embedded law enforcement agents portrayed interest in the Bible and kept covert audio and video recordings of peaceful worship services and conversations with believers. On March 31, 2021, the case came before the Severskiy City Court of the Tomsk Region. The trial lasted for about 10 months.

The verdict did not come into force and can be appealed. Yevgeniy Korotun insists on his complete innocence.

On January 20, 2022, Andrey Kolesnichenko, the husband of Yevgeniy Korotun's sister, was also convicted only because he believes in Jehovah God and sentenced to four years in a general regime colony for participating in the activities of an extremist organization.

On October 28, 2021, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled that prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses for the very fact of their religious beliefs and joint worship services was unreasonable. While leaving unchanged a 2017 decision to liquidate their legal entities, the Supreme Court nevertheless considered the right of believers to continue to believe according to their beliefs to be legitimate.

On 8 November 2021, a group of Russian religious scholars and human rights activists published an open statement in support of Jehovah's Witnesses. In particular, they noted: "The Supreme Court ruling should be implemented in judicial practice. The state must admit its mistake, and law enforcement agencies and courts must stop the repression of Jehovah's Witnesses."