Biography
Nadezhda Anoykina never suspected that she could be prosecuted for her faith. She became one of six residents of Vladivostok, aged 61 to 84, who was charged with extremism.
Nadezhda was born in 1958 in the village of Parnaya (Krasnoyarsk Territory). As the eldest of three daughters, she helped her parents a lot with household chores. After school she graduated from the Krasnoyarsk Railway Technical School. Later she married, but in 1985 the family broke up. Nadezhda raised two daughters. In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, she worked as a pumping operator. Due to the difficult economic situation in Siberia, Nadezhda was forced to move to Primorsky Krai: first to the village of Wrangel, and then to Vladivostok, a port city on the coast of the Sea of Japan. Now she is retired, but works as a cleaner.
Nadezhda often thought about why people suffer and die, and wanted to find the truth about God. In 1996, she found convincing answers to her questions in the Bible.
Nadezhda's daughters support her and help her cope with the new difficulties that have arisen due to criminal prosecution, both moral and material.
Case History
In April 2018, the Federal Security Service of Russia for the Primorye Territory opened a criminal case against Jehovah’s Witnesses from Vladivostok. Believers were searched. Valentyn Osadchuk spent 9 months in pre-trial detention and 77 days under house arrest. In April 2019, he was accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization, and 6 elderly women — Lyubov Galaktionova, Nailya Kogai, Nina Purga, Nadezhda Anoykina, Raisa Usanova and Yelena Zayshchuk — were accused of participating in it. Soon the case was received by the Leninsky District Court, but a month later the judge returned it to the prosecutor. This decision was upheld twice by the appellate court. Since January 2021, the case has been re-examined in the same court by Maksim Anufriev. With regard to Zayshchuk, the case was suspended due to her advanced age and state of health. In May 2022, the prosecutor requested a sentence of 6.5 years in prison for Valentin Osadchuk, and a 5-year suspended sentence for women. In June, the court sentenced the believers to suspended sentences ranging from 2 to 6 years. In September 2022, the appeal upheld the verdict.
