The Court of Appeal in Chelyabinsk Upholds the Conviction of 75-Year-Old Jehovah's Witness Vladimir Suvorov

On October 15, 2021, the Chelyabinsk Regional Court upheld the sentence to Vladimir Suvorov - 6 years suspended for organizing "extremist activities". The verdict has entered into force. The believer still insists on his innocence. He has the right to appeal the verdict in cassation, as well as in international instances.

The court of first instance did not satisfy the prosecutor's request to send the believer to jail for 7 years. On July 1, 2021, Oksana Mitina, judge of the Metallurgicheskiy District Court of Chelyabinsk, convicted the 75-year-old Jehovah's Witness and sentenced him to 6 years of suspended imprisonment for talking to people about God, holding worship services, singing hymns and prayers. The judge considered it to be the organization of the activities of a banned community.

Vladimir Suvorov has hypertension and a sick heart. His 73-year-old wife, Valentina, was also prosecuted simply because she is one of Jehovah's Witnesses. The court also found her guilty of extremism and sentenced her to 2 years of suspended imprisonment. All this was a new blow after the couple lost their only son a few years ago.

In July 2020, Vladimir Suvorov was included in the "List of Terrorists and Extremists" of Rosfinmonitoring. This seriously complicated the financial condition of the elderly spouses. In addition, the believer spent about a year under recognizance not to leave.

Vladimir has been one of Jehovah's Witnesses for almost 30 years. Russian courts began to recognize ordinary religious practices as extremist activities and an encroachment on the constitutional order of Russia. Neither the venerable age of the defendants, nor the absence of victims and evidence of guilt in the case stop judges from sentencing believers.

The conflict between law and law enforcement practice in Russia, according to the European Court of Human Rights, occurs due to a number of erroneous stereotypes about Jehovah's Witnesses. The ECHR gave this a legal interpretation.