Sergey Melnikov's Primorye Appeal Was Upheld: A Three-Year Suspended Sentence for Practicing His Faith in Jehovah God
Primorye TerritoryOn May 12, 2022, the Primorye Regional Court of Vladivostok upheld the conviction of 49-year-old Sergey Melnikov for continuing to attend Jehovah's Witnesses’ services and discussing the Bible with residents of Ussuriysk.
The verdict has entered into force. The believer still insists on his innocence and has the right to appeal against it in cassation.
Sergey Melnikov has been subjected to criminal prosecution for more than two years, which began in June 2019. He was detained in his own car during a conversation with agent provocateur Konstantin Belousov, who collaborated with the FSB. He asked Melnikov questions about the Bible and made audio recordings of their conversations. At the same time, in his testimony in court, Belousov admitted that the believer had not forced him to talk about the Bible or encouraged him to join Jehovah's Witnesses. Despite this, Melnikov was searched and arrested, spent 122 days in a pre-trial detention center and 145 days under house arrest, and since February 2021 he has been under recognizance agreement.
During the hearings in the first instance court, the prosecutor requested a 4-year suspended sentence. On February 3, 2022, the judge of the Ussuriysk District Court of Primorye Territory, Dmitry Babushkin, passed a suspended sentence of 3 years with a probationary period of 2 years and 8 months of restriction of liberty.
In Primorye, 39 believers have already been prosecuted. Six of them have been sentenced.
Russian human rights activists consider the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses groundless. Olga Sibireva, an expert from the SOVA Human Rights Center, draws attention to the absence of any facts confirming the accusations of Jehovah's Witnesses of extremism. In her opinion, “there are no calls for terrorism and something like that, because Jehovah’s Witnesses are a completely peaceful doctrine.”