A 74-year-old Resident of Chelyabinsk and His Wife Persecuted for Faith. The Investigator Considered the Elderly Couple Extremists

Alexander Chepenko, an investigator for particularly important cases of the Investigative Department of the TFR in the Chelyabinsk region, opened a criminal case against 74-year-old Vladimir Suvorov. The accusations are based on conversations about God with residents of Chelyabinsk and discussion of the Bible among fellow believers.

The criminal case against Vladimir Suvorov was initiated on January 16, 2020 under the article "organization of extremist activity" (part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

As stated in the decision to initiate the case, Vladimir organized meetings of fellow believers, during which they prayed to Jehovah together and sang religious songs. The investigator interpreted these actions as a continuation of the activities of the legal entity, the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses "Chelyabinsk", which was actually liquidated back in May 2017 after the Supreme Court decision to ban 396 legal entities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

On February 26, investigator Chepenko summoned Vladimir for interrogation, during which he orally informed the believer that he was under recognizance not to leave. Vladimir himself stated during the interrogation that he had never been engaged in extremist activities, and petitioned for the termination of the criminal case due to the absence of the fact of the crime itself.

Earlier, the same investigator charged Vladimir's wife, 71-year-old Valentina Suvorova, with extremism. Now she is under recognizance not to leave.