Temirbulatov Yuriy

Updated: April 24, 2024
Name: Temirbulatov Yuriy Rafikovich
Date of Birth: July 12, 1977
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1)
Time spent in prison: 2 day in a temporary detention facility, 542 day in a pre-trial detention
Sentence: punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 6 years with serving in a correctional colony of general regime, with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to leadership and participation in the work of public religious organizations for a term of 2 years, with restriction of liberty for a term of 1 year

Biography

Yuriy Temirbulatov, a respectable family man and father of three sons, ended up behind bars only because of his faith in God. "Work has stopped, business has collapsed, and chronic diseases worsened", — Alla, his wife, shared. Because of the stress and difficult conditions in the detention center her husband developed a cancer disease.

Yuriy was born in July 1977 in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) in a family of railway workers. His father was a locomotive engineer, and his mother was an accountant at a locomotive depot. Yuriy has a brother and sister. As a child he was involved in judo and soccer, and studied music school.

For a while, Yuriy worked as a printing press engineer and was appointed administrative director for his conscientious attitude to work. Lately he has been involved in tax consulting. In addition to Samarkand, Yuriy has lived in Tashkent, Bukhara, the Tver region and Moscow.

Yuriy met Alla in the 1990s. She works as a hairdresser, loves art and poetry. Yuriy is fond of photography, diving, music and cars, he studies foreign languages. At the end of the 1990s, Yuriy and Alla made the decision to devote their lives to serving God.

Temirbulatov's family and friends wonder why such a decent and deeply religious man was accused of extremism.

Case History

Since 2019, believers in Moscow have been under surveillance. In February 2021, officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and the National Guard broke into 16 apartments of Jehovah’s Witnesses from Moscow and the Moscow Region. Some reported beatings and money going missing during the search. Alexandr Serebryakov and Yuriy Temirbulatov were put in detention, although Alexandr was taking care of his elderly disabled mother, and Yuriy, the father of three children, suffers from various illnesses and has a dependent mother-in-law who is disabled. While behind bars, Alexandr was seriously ill with COVID-19, and Yuriy underwent a serious operation (he had developed an oncological disease). The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation considered the reading of the Bible and the singing of religious songs as organizing the activity of an extremist organization. The case went to court in January 2022. In August 2022, the believers were given a 6 year suspended sentence, and in November 2022, the Appeal Court upheld this sentence.
Timeline