In Ussuriysk Three Jehovah's Witnesses Were Given 6 Years of Suspended Sentence for Discussing the Bible

On November 30, 2022, Dmitriy Babushkin, judge of the Ussuriysk District Court of Primorye Territory, found Sergey Korolchuk, Anton Chermnykh and Dmitriy Tishchenko guilty of "continuing the illegal activity of a banned religious organization". That is how the authorities interpret the peaceful conversations of Jehovah's Witnesses about the Bible.

All believers received the same sentence: 6 years' suspended term, 4 years' probation, and 1 year restriction of liberty. The verdict has not yet entered into force and can be appealed.

The Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the city of Ussuriysk considered it a crime that Korolchuk, Chermnykh and Tishchenko gathered with friends in a café where they “listened to talks”, “answered questions” and “sang religious songs”. On June 18, 2019, Investigator E. Marvaniuk opened a criminal case under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. On the same day, the homes of two believers were searched.

Sergey Korolchuk was taken to the Investigative Committee, seemingly to receive copies of the search protocol, but in the end, he was detained and placed in detention for 2 days. Later, all three defendants were put under a recognizance agreement, which was in place for almost 3 years. The Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian Federation blocked their bank accounts.

On August 11, 2020, the case was received by the Ussuriysk District Court. The key witness for the prosecution was K. Rusakov, an FSB officer. During 2017–18, he tracked the believers and arranged for their telephone conversations to be wiretapped. However, in court he could not answer most of the questions, as he “does not remember much”. Another witness was unable to confirm that she was interrogated in May 2019, although the documents bear her signature.

The criminal prosecution has become a test for the believers' families. Dmitriy Tishchenko said: “My wife and I began to appreciate the opportunity to be together even more, as we understand that we can lose it at any moment.”

In Primorye, 41 of Jehovah's Witnesses have already been prosecuted for their faith, 19 of them are women, the oldest of whom will soon be 88 years old. Five believers are serving a suspended sentence.

On June 7, 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled to end the repression of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.