Investigators Replenish the List of “Elderly Extremists” With Believers From Nevinnomyssk

On December 12, 2019, in Nevinnomyssk (Stavropol Territory), the Investigative Committee opened criminal cases under two "extremist" articles against 9 believers, the eldest of whom is 89 years old. So law enforcement officers decided to intensify the persecution of peaceful elderly Jehovah's Witnesses.

Lieutenant Colonel of Justice V. Sabadash, deputy head of the investigation department for Nevinnomyssk, decided to initiate a criminal case against 60-year-old Sergey Kuznetsov on charges of organizing a banned community (part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Accused of participation in an extremist organization (part 2 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) were 89-year-old Rimma Vashchenko, 78-year-old Anatoliy Boyko, Georgy and Tatyana Parfentiev (73 and 72 years old, respectively), 71-year-old Evgenia Akhrameeva, as well as 57-year-old Nadezhda Konkova and 54-year-old Karina Sahakyan.

The decision to initiate criminal cases was made on the basis of the reports of the detective of the Center for Countering Extremism (CPE) of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Stavropol Territory M. Chmyrev and the senior detective of the FSB department of Russia F. Savichev.

About a year earlier, on November 21, 2018, mass operational-search activities took place in the homes of believers from Nevinnomyssk: security forces seized phones, books, computers, other electronic devices and flash drives. In some cases, operatives demanded passwords from computer equipment, threatening otherwise to hack them.

In one of the cases, after a search, an elderly owner lost 10 thousand rubles. In another case, the search took place in the presence of minor children.

The searches were followed by interrogations that lasted for several hours. One of the men had high blood pressure during the interrogation and had to call an ambulance.

Six months later, in July 2019, at 6:40 am, the operatives came to Vahan Mkhitaryan. The search and the subsequent interrogation were accompanied by threats and insults, as well as obscene language against the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. Mkhitaryan was taken to the police station, where he was beaten for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Electronic media, Bibles in Armenian and Russian languages were seized from him. The security forces also tried to plant a bag with suspicious green contents on the man.

Another raid, the victims of which were mainly the elderly, the disabled and children, took place in Neftekumsk, when on August 26, 2017, security forces detained 18 believers who were vacationing in nature.

Harassment of believers in the Stavropol Territory began even before the Supreme Court's decision to ban 396 Russian religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses. Announcements of these events are published on the regional page.