The Court of Appeal in Primorye Territory Upheld the Verdict Against Three Believers From Lesozavodsk

On June 14, 2023, the Primorskiy Territorial Court, chaired by Judge Svetlana Ustimenko, upheld the verdict against Yevgeniy Grinenko, Sergey Kobelev and Svetlana Yefremova for their faith – a 6-year suspended sentence for the men and 3 years of probation for the elderly woman.

In February 2022, the Lesozavodskiy District Court found three local residents guilty of extremism for talking about the Bible and attending peaceful religious meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses. The convicted persons have appealed the verdict. According to the defense, the believers did not commit any real crime, the court only proved that they belong to the denomination of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is not prohibited by any law.

“I did not deny that I was one of Jehovah's Witness, nor that I met with friends, discussed the Bible and sang religious songs,” Yevgeniy Grinenko emphasized in the appeal. “At the same time, the court of first instance did not substantiate in the verdict why the peaceful way of expressing faith in God was regarded by the court as a way of committing a crime.”

Svetlana Yefremova expressed her position as follows: “In sentencing me for carrying out, allegedly, extremist activities… the court actually punished me for practicing religion in the way common for Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Sergey Kobelev stated: “Under such circumstances, my criminal prosecution and the guilty verdict cannot pursue any legitimate aim.”

The head of the Center for the studies of problems of Religion and Society at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Political Sciences Roman Lunkin, assessed the long-term campaign of repressions against believers in the following way: "As sad as it is, the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is based on a rather primitive, even mundane logic: they are simply disliked by a section of society that often knows nothing about [their] doctrine and practice, and for law enforcement agencies, searches, arrests and liquidation of organizations is an opportunity... to pretend they are fighting for the security of the state.”