Court in the City of Solikamsk Fines Three Jehovah's Witnesses for Talking about the Bible

On August 18, 2023, the Judge of the Solikamsk City Court of the Perm Territory, Evgeny Sergeev, fined 50-year-old Aleksandr Sobyanin 494 thousand rubles, 61-year-old Vladimir Poltoradnev - 638 thousand rubles and 54-year-old Vladimir Timoshkin - 512 thousand rubles, finding them guilty of extremism for participation in peaceful worship.

The believers did not admit their guilt, they repeatedly drew the attention of the court to the fact that their activities were legal. “All my actions were exclusively peaceful and did not harm anyone,” said Vladimir Poltoradnev. A similar thought was expressed by Vladimir Timoshkin: "For me, because of the beliefs I practice, it is unacceptable for me to propagate any extremist ideas or incite enmity and hatred."

The criminal case was initiated by the investigative department for Solikamsk of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Perm Territory in July 2020. Investigator Sergei Kanafiev accused the believers of organizing an extremist organization, pointing out that they "participated in religious meetings ... discussed issues and topics of a religious nature with followers." In Solikamsk, searches were carried out in several homes of local Jehovah's Witnesses. Aleksandr Sobyanin, Vladimir Timoshkin and Vladimir Poltoradnev were sent to the temporary detention center by the security forces. Later, Sobyanin's preventive measure was replaced by a ban on certain actions. Poltoradnev and Timoshkin spent two and three months under house arrest, respectively. Subsequently, they were also prohibited from certain activities.

The investigation lasted more than two and a half years, and in April 2023 the case went to court. During the hearings, violations on the part of the investigation were revealed. For example, as Sobyanin and Timoshkin stated, the prosecution presented as evidence of the believers' guilt audio recordings of wiretapping, in which their voices are not heard. Vladimir Poltoradnev said that he did not own the allegedly confiscated literature.

Witnesses interrogated in court gave positive characteristics to the defendants. The former boss of Poltoradnev spoke of him like this: “An excellent worker! I have no complaints about him!" The believers were also positively described by their colleagues and neighbors.

The prosecutor requested 6 years in prison for Vladimir Timoshkin and Vladimir Poltoradnev, and asked Aleksandr Sobyanin to replace Part 1 (organization of extremist activity) with Part 2 (participation) of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and sentence him to  three years in prison. The verdict has not yet entered into force.

In the Perm Territory , eleven believers have already been prosecuted, five of them received suspended sentences, and five more received fines.

The UN Human Rights Council expresses concern about the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and draws attention to the fact that "the actions of the state [to liquidate legal entities of believers] were motivated by a discriminatory goal: to stop the religious practice of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia."