Russian Citizenship of Another Jehovah's Witness is Revoked. Andrey Tabakov Expelled to Belarus

On December 12, 2024, Andrey Tabakov, who had served a sentence for his faith, was forced to leave Russia—on October 30, 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Ulyanovsk Region terminated his citizenship of the Russian Federation.

Andrey was born in Minsk in 1973. His father was in the military. The family often moved to different cities of the USSR, and later, when the head of the family retired, they settled in Ulyanovsk, in the hometown of the believer's parents. In Russia, Andrey graduated from school, received a higher education, started a family and worked. Here, he and his wife have elderly parents and other relatives.

In 2019, Andrey became a defendant in a criminal case and spent 49 days under house arrest. The prosecution saw signs of extremism in the peaceful religious activities of Tabakov and his fellow believers. For discussing the Bible at meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses, Andrey was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months of suspended sentence. In his last plea, Tabakov commented on the accusation as follows: "It is not clear to me how one can call people extremists who reject any violence even at the cost of their own lives."

Earlier, the Russian Federation revoked the citizenship of Feliks Makhammadiyev, Konstantin Bazhenov and Rustam Seidkuliev. Danish citizen Dennis Christensen was also deported.