Jehovah's Witnesses Were Searched Again in Chelyabinsk

On October 22, 2021, Chelyabinsk security forces searched at two addresses: at 53-year-old Vadim Gizatulin and 52-year-old Irina Mikhailenko. The home of 59-year-old Olga Zhelavskaya was not searched, as she was in the hospital after COVID-19 and a stroke. All three of them are suspected of extremism for their faith.

Electronic devices and old telephone books were confiscated from believers. After the searches, Vadim Gizatulin and his wife, as well as Irina Mikhailenko with her husband and son, were taken to the Investigative Committee for interrogation.

Operational measures for Chelyabinsk residents were repeated, they were sanctioned by the Traktorozavodsky District Court on the basis of a criminal case initiated by investigator Aleksandr Chepenko, who organized the criminal prosecution of an elderly couple Vladimir Suvorov and his wife Valentina. They were subsequently sentenced to 6 and 2 years suspended sentence. Gizatulin and Mikhailenko were witnesses in that case. Chepenko also conducted an investigation into the case of three other Jehovah's Witnesses in the Chelyabinsk Region, including Dmitriy Vinogradov, who was sentenced to a 2-year suspended sentence.

As before, investigator Chepenko accuses believers of "extremist activity" — the peaceful and de jure not prohibited in Russia worship services of Jehovah's Witnesses.