Zhinzhikov Eduard

Name: Zhinzhikov Eduard Vladimirovich
Date of Birth: November 9, 1971
Current status: who has served the main sentence
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1), 282.3 (1)
Time spent in prison: 1 day in a temporary detention facility, 315 day in a pre-trial detention
Sentence: punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 1 year 3 months with serving a sentence in a correctional colony of general regime, with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to leadership and participation in the work of religious organizations for a period of 3 years, with restriction of liberty for a term of 1 year; to set off the time of his detention in custody in the term of serving the sentence; to be considered to have served a sentence of deprivation of liberty

Biography

On October 24, 2019, in Novozybkov, law enforcers threw two believers into a pre-trial detention center just because of their religion. The wife of 48-year-old Eduard Zhinzhikov lost her unborn child due to stress. What do we know about Eduard and his family?

Eduard was born in 1971 in the village of Zadnya, Kletnyansky District, Bryansk Region, but lived most of his life in Novozybkov. He has a younger sister.

As a child, Eduard wrote poetry and was fond of playing the guitar. He loves fishing and is interested in snooker. He is a welder by profession, he also worked in the police and as a watchman.

Thanks to music, he met his future wife Tatiana (they played in the same instrumental group). Eduard and Tatiana got married in 1993. Tatiana is a tailor by profession. The couple have an adult daughter, the family loves to spend time in the country.

In the 90s, Eduard became interested in the Bible, in which he found answers to his questions. The newfound knowledge from this book prompted him to get rid of bad habits, to devote more time to his family. This had a positive effect on the life of the whole family, Tatiana also became interested in the Holy Scriptures.

Early in the morning of October 24, 2019, security forces with machine guns and helmets broke into the Zhinzhikovs' home. After knocking Eduard to the floor face down, they read him a search warrant, filming it all. The security forces demanded that they be provided with the journals of Jehovah's Witnesses. During the search, Eduard was kept against the wall for three hours under the supervision of a machine gunner.

Police officers from the accounting department were invited as witnesses. Not finding any literature, the security forces seized electronic devices, a camera, flash drives and all bank cards. The security forces broke the wardrobe where the underwear lay.

After the search, Eduard was arrested, as a result, he spent almost a year behind bars. The stress experienced led to a tragedy in the family: Tatiana had a miscarriage. Relatives and friends support the spouses and do not understand how it was possible to condemn a person only for his faith in God.

Case History

On September 3, 2020, the Novozybkovsky City Court found Vladimir Khokhlov, Eduard Zhinzhikov, Tatyana Shamsheva and Olga Silaeva guilty of extremist activities and sentenced them to imprisonment for a term of 12 to 15 months, followed by restriction of freedom and a ban on holding leadership positions. Since the believers had already spent about a year behind bars, they were released right in the courtroom. All of them ended up in jail after mass raids by armed security forces in 2019 in the Bryansk region. The security forces considered the usual communication of believers on religious topics to be a “criminal conspiracy”. However, during the court session it turned out that “information and files relevant to the criminal case were not found.” Due to the stress experienced, Vladimir Khokhlov suffered a hypertensive crisis, and Eduard Zhinzhikov and his wife lost an unborn child. In October 2020, the appeal upheld the verdict. In December 2021, this decision was upheld by the Court of Cassation.
Timeline
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