Nine of Jehovah's Witnesses from Irkutsk Received 3 to 7 Years of Imprisonment for Their Faith

On March 5, 2024, Andrey Slavinskiy, judge of the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Irkutsk, issued a verdict in the case of 9 of Jehovah's Witnesses. He found them guilty of extremism and sentenced them to various terms of imprisonment in a penal colony.

The maximum terms — 7 years — were received by Yaroslav Kalin, Sergey Kosteyev, Nikolay Martynov, Mikhail Moysh, Aleksey Solnechny, Andrey Tolmachev. Igor Popov and Denis Sarazhakov received 6 years and 4 months, and Sergey Vasilyev received 3 years. The verdict has not entered into force, the believers do not plead guilty and plan to appeal.

A criminal case was initiated in October 2021, at the same time searches were carried out in the homes of the believers. Law enforcement officials behaved rudely: they broke double-glazed windows, broke in through windows and balcony doors. Some of the raids were accompanied by beatings.

Following the searches, six men — Yaroslav Kalin, Sergey Kosteyev, Nikolay Martynov, Mikhail Moysh, Aleksey Solnechny, and Andrey Tolmachev — were taken into custody, where they had spent more than two years. The oldest of the detainees is Sergey Vasilyev, who is now 72 years old, stayed for 2 days in the temporary detention facility, after which he was transferred to house arrest (and now again taken into custody). In the pre-trial detention center some of the men were often ill. "My friends and I suffered a lot of misfortunes and hardships during the criminal prosecution," said Yaroslav Kalin. "We were in the worst cells and conditions we could have. We have experienced the bitterness of imprisonment."

As part of this case, in November 2021, searches were also carried out at the homes of Denis Sarazhakov in Khakassia and Igor Popov in the Kemerovo Region, after which the men were placed in a pre-trial detention center, they also spent more than two years in prison.

After a year of investigative actions, in December 2022, the case was submitted to the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Irkutsk. The prosecutor requested from 3 to 7 years in a general regime colony for the believers.

Speaking in court with his final statement, Aleksey Solnechny said: "I have been detained for more than two years on charges of a crime that I did not commit. When you read the indictment, you can see that the investigator included in it all the fables that he found on the Internet regarding Jehovah's Witnesses." He added: "Either I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses or I am an extremist. It is impossible to be both at the same time. And I declare: I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I am not an extremist!"

Yaroslav Kalin emphasized in his final statement: "I sincerely wonder for what act I was requested such a term. I did not sit idly by at this trial. I delved into the essence of the accusation and the arguments of the investigation and was convinced of the complete inconsistency of the accusation and its illegality. I have not received an answer to the question: where and what is extremism? Neither my conscience nor my mind accepts the unfounded accusations that were made in court. And the requested punishment simply defies logic."

At one of the court hearings, he also spoke about how his relatives were exiled to Siberia for their faith during the Soviet era: "I was sure that history could not repeat itself. Russia cannot make the same mistakes. It cannot first imprison believers, then apologize to their children, and then again imprison their own children and grandchildren for their faith in God."