Updated: March 28, 2024
Name: Olkhova Galiya Anvarovna
Date of Birth: February 5, 1970
Current status: who has served the main sentence
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (2)
Sentence: punishment in the form of 2 years of imprisonment, with restriction of liberty for a term of 8 months, punishment in the form of imprisonment shall be considered conditional with a probationary period of 3 years

Biography

On July 11, 2018, a criminal case was opened against a civilian resident of Penza, Galiya Olkhova, on charges of extremism. The investigation considered it a crime that Galia participated in religious services. What do we know about her?

Galiya was born in 1970 in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) in a family with four children. She graduated from the printing college and got married in 1991. To pay attention to her husband and children, she tried to look for a part-time job. In 1994, the family moved to Russia, in the city of Rtishchevo (Saratov region), and in 2010 - to Penza.

Galia was keenly interested in spiritual things, sought God, asked questions to her acquaintances. She was struck by the fulfillment of the prophecies from the biblical book of Daniel. Husband Vadim does not share his wife's religious beliefs, but he saw that they have strengthened their marriage and supports her.

Galia says: "I just like to sit at home with my husband, pamper him with cakes - their pastries have become my hobby." Her other hobbies are knitting and walking with friends in nature. The couple have two adult children.

Galiya's relatives cannot understand how people can be persecuted in our time just because they believe in God.

The guilty verdict handed down by the judge of the Leninsky District Court of Penza, Roman Tanchenko, on December 13, 2019, came as a shock to Galiya, her family and friends.

Case History

In July 2018, searches were carried out in Penza and criminal cases were initiated against 6 local Jehovah’s Witnesses. It turned out that since the fall of 2017, the believers had been under covert surveillance. Vladimir Alushkin spent six months in a pre-trial detention center. The UN Working Group officially recognized his arrest as arbitrary. In the summer of 2019, the case was submitted to the Leninsky District Court of Penza. During the hearings, it turned out that the protocols of the witnesses’ interrogations were partially falsified by the investigation, and one of the witnesses told the court that she had testified under pressure. In December 2019, Judge Roman Tanchenko sentenced Vladimir Alushkin to 6 years in prison, and Tatyana Alushkina, Galia Olkhova, Vladimir Kulyasov, Andrey Magliv and Denis Timoshin to 2 years suspended. In September 2020, the Penza Regional Court commuted the sentence of Vladimir Alushkin, replacing 6 years in prison with 4 years probation. For the rest, the court upheld the sentence - 2 years suspended. On December 9, 2021, the First Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction upheld the verdict.