Name: Shevchuk Aleksandr Stanislavovich
Date of Birth: August 31, 1989
Current status: who has served the main sentence
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (2)
Time spent in prison: 2 day in a temporary detention facility, 288 day in a pre-trial detention, 291 day in prison
Sentence: punishment in the form of 2 years of imprisonment in a penal colony of general regime, with restriction of liberty for 6 months

Biography

In 2019, several residents of Saransk, including Aleksandr Shevchuk, were prosecuted for their faith. Law enforcers considered the conversations about the Bible to be participation in the activities of an extremist organization.

Alexander was born in 1989 in Pyatigorsk (Stavropol Territory). He has a brother, Michael. Since childhood, Alexander was a responsible person, he studied excellently at school, and later received a specialty in the field of garden and park construction. Later he moved to Saransk, where he worked in the furniture industry.

Aleksandr grew up in a family of believers, many of his relatives survived the repressions in the Soviet years. His great-grandparents were exiled to Siberia in 1951 for their Christian faith. There, in exile, his parents were born.

Because of his peace-loving Christian convictions, Aleksandr asked for the replacement of military service with an alternative civilian one and did it in Khimki near Moscow.

Alexander loves sports, especially basketball and table tennis. His friends know that he will readily come to the rescue at any time of the day or night.

Relatives worry about Alexander and do not understand why they are persecuting this peace-loving man.

Case History

In February 2019, in Saransk, the FSB initiated a criminal case against three believers on suspicion of extremism. After mass searches, Vladimir Atryakhin, father of two young children, as well as Aleksandr Shevchuk and Georgiy Nikulin ended up in a pretrial detention center, where they spent between 2 and 5 months. Later, three more defendants appeared in the case — Aleksandr Korolev, Elena Nikulina and Denis Antonov. The case went to court in May 2021. The defense managed to show the court several times that the unveiled secret witness, Vlasov, was giving false testimony. In August 2022, the believers were convicted: Vladimir Atryakhin was sentenced to 6 years, Georgiy and Yelena Nikulin — 4 years and 2 months, and Aleksandr Shevchuk, Aleksandr Korolev and Denis Antonov — 2 years in a penal colony. The court of appeal upheld the verdict. In November 2023, Shevchuk was released from the penal colony, and in June 2024, Korolev and Antonov were released.
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