An appeal against the extension of the arrest of a Jehovah's Witness from Denmark is being heard in Oryol

On September 20, 2017, the Oryol Regional Court is considering an appeal against the decision of the Sovetsky District Court of Oryol to extend the period of detention of Danish citizen Dennis Christensen for another 4 months. The believer is suspected of continuing the activities of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, which was liquidated by the court. The lawyers are asking the Court of Appeal to overturn the decision to extend the prison sentence and choose a measure of restraint in the form of cash bail or house arrest against Dennis Christensen.

The decision to extend the period of detention was made on July 20, 2017 by Judge S. Naumova, the same one who made the initial decision to choose a measure of restraint in the form of imprisonment against the believer. In fact, when deciding whether to extend the period of detention and establishing whether there were grounds for choosing this measure of restraint, Judge Naumova had to decide whether her own actions in applying the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation regulating the procedure for choosing a preventive measure had previously been appropriate and sufficient. In other words, it was considering an issue on which it had previously decided, which is unacceptable in Russian legal proceedings. In accordance with this, the judge was unsuccessfully challenged at the hearing.

The court also ignored the arguments of the defense about the redundancy and unreasonableness of such a severe measure of restraint. For example, the meeting examined an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, as well as the charter of the liquidated organization, which confirm that Dennis Christensen, although he is Jehovah's Witness by religion, was not and could not be the founder, member or leader of this registered religious association, and therefore cannot be accused of continuing its activities. However, in its ruling, the court did not even mention this and did not evaluate any of the evidence presented by the defense.