Viktor Stashevskiy Can Become the First Jehovah's Witness to Be Sent from Penal Colony to Prison for Fictitious Violations

On May 2, 2024, the judge of the Apsheronskiy District Court of the Krasnodar Territory ruled to satisfy the colony's submission and transfer Viktor Stashevskiy from the colony to prison for 3 years.

According to the law, those who are convicted of especially dangerous crimes, such as terrorism, hostage-taking, massacres, etc. should be sent prisons. Conditions in prisons are much more difficult than in colonies: prisoners are in cramped, locked cells, often solitary confinement. If convicts in colonies live in barracks and move freely around the territory, then possibility to walk in prison is strictly limited - for example, walks take place under escort in a small courtyard, over which a grate or barbed wire is fixed. Also, in prison, convicts cannot work and study any specialty.

Stashevskiy has already been serving his sentence for his faith for the third year. He is being held in correctional colony No. 9 in the Krasnodar Territory, located in the city of Khadyzhensk. According to fabricated penalties, the believer was found to be a malicious violator of the order of serving his sentence, and he was also charged with numerous other violations. However, he did not even know about most of them. In the colony, he was kept in strict conditions and repeatedly imprisoned in a cell-type room, a kind of "internal prison".

The court's decision to transfer Stashevskiy to another correctional institution has not yet entered into force. He continues to be in the colony and intends to appeal against the illegal transfer.