Court of Сassation in Chelyabinsk Did Not Overturn the Verdict Against Ilya Olenin. He Was Given a Heavy Fine

On June 7, 2023, the Seventh Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction upheld the verdict and appeal ruling against Ilya Olenin, one of Jehovah's Witnesses, who was fined 500,000 rubles for his faith.

In July 2022, the Snezhinsk City Court of the Chelyabinsk Region considered the participation of Ilya Olenin in the peaceful worship of Jehovah's Witnesses as organizing the activity of a banned religious organization. The court of appeal did not reverse this decision.

In his appeal, Olenin stated that he had not committed any crime: “During the trial, it was firmly established that my actions were in fact nothing more than an expression of my attitude towards religion, which does not lead to criminal liability, as emphasized by the RF Supreme Court.”

The believer drew the court's attention to the fact that meetings for worship, songs and prayers do not pose any danger to society. To find Olenin guilty, the prosecution would have had to prove that he had criminal intent. However, as the believer highlighted, there is no such evidence in the case materials.

In 2019, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking about the criminal prosecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, noted that this “creates a dangerous precedent and actually criminalizes the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to freedom of religion or belief in Russia, which is contrary to the obligations of the state, arising from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights".