A Court in Oryol Sentenced Tatyana Piskareva, 67, to 2.5 Years of Forced Labor for Participating in Peaceful Worship. Earlier, her Husband Had Received 6 Years in a Penal Colony for Similar Charges

Tatyana Piskareva, a pensioner from Oryol, was found guilty of participating in the activity of an extremist organization because of her faith. On March 1, 2024, Dmitriy Sukhov, judge of the Sovetskiy District Court of Oryol, sentenced her to 2 years and 6 months of forced labor.

The believer's case continues the trend of prosecuting several family members at once: Tatyana's husband, Vladimir, received 6 years in a penal colony under an article for extremism and is now awaiting an appeal. He was arrested after searches in December 2020 and has been behind bars ever since. There he suffered several hypertensive crises and a stroke; he was diagnosed with coronary artery disease. Tatyana said: "I wanted to help my husband when he had a crisis, but I could not help in any way. It was painful to watch the inactivity of the pretrial detention center."

The RF Investigative Committee initiated a case against Piskareva in October 2021. She was accused of participating in meetings for worship via video conferencing. A year and a half later, the trial began. At the hearing, it turned out that 11 of the 13 prosecution witnesses did not know the believer.

"I love all people regardless of their nationality, race, skin color and language, religion and other beliefs. I hate extremism in any form," Tatyana said during the trial. "I am a believer, one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and this is not a crime." The decision of the court may be appealed in higher instances.