The Verdict Against Three Believers in Oryol Came Into Force After an Appeal. They Will Remain Behind Bars

On April 8, 2024, a panel of judges of the Oryol Regional Court, chaired by Judge Yuliya Orlovskaya, approved six years in prison for the faith of Piskarev, Melnik and Putintsev. Taking into account the 3 years and 4 months spent in pre-trial detention before the verdict came into force, they may be released in April 2025.

The accusation of organizing the activities of an extremist organization and participating in it was based on audio recordings of a biblical speech that Piskarev rehearsed aloud in his apartment. As a result, on October 13, 2023, the judge of the Sovetskiy District Court of the city of Oryol, Natalya Tishkova, found the three believers guilty.

Pensioner Vladimir Piskarev is experiencing particular difficulties in prison—he had a stroke in the pre-trial detention center and hypertensive crises were recorded twice. In his last plea, he emphasized: "All the accusations that are in the indictment do not correspond to reality, as evidenced by the facts from the criminal case, from the examinations, as well as from the words of prosecution witnesses." Among other things, it was established that his religion was not prohibited by law, he did not incite religious hatred and never promoted the superiority of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Eight Jehovah's Witnesses have already been prosecuted in the Oryol Region, including Dennis Christensen, the first Jehovah's Witness in modern Russia who ended up behind bars only because of his faith.