In Razdolnoe Village a 73-Year-Old Believer Lyudmila Shut Received a 4-Year Suspended Sentence for Reading the Bible

On May 19, 2021 the judge of Nadezhdinskiy District Court of Primorye Territory Lyudmila Setrakova found the disabled woman Lyudmila Shut guilty of participation in activities of extremist organization. A pensioner from the village of Razdolnoe was sentenced to four years of suspended imprisonment.

The verdict has not entered into force and can be appealed. The believer insists on her complete innocence.

Though there were no victims in the case, the court fully satisfied the prosecutor's recommendation: the state prosecutor asked the court to sentence the believer to four years of suspended imprisonment with a probation period of three years and one year of restricted freedom. The state prosecutor also asked to deprive the believer of the right to engage in activities related to participation in public organizations for 4 years. She has been kept on her own recognizance for over a year.

Lyudmila could hardly move on crutches. Since she was a little girl she did a lot of hard physical labor, helping her mother with household chores. During her life she worked as a turner, milkmaid, headed a warehouse and was manager of a state farm. She was widowed 18 years ago. She has three children and three grandchildren. Criminal prosecution further undermined her health, her eyesight deteriorated and she needed an operation. After the interrogations she repeatedly had to call an ambulance.

In her final statement, Lyudmila Shut said: "I have the right to be a religious person! I do not agree with the charges. I am not a criminal and not an extremist. I do not know such a scary word at all, it is alien to me and completely contradicts my religious views."

On July 19, 2018, searches were conducted in the homes of believers from the village of Razdolnoye, after which Lyudmila Shut was summoned for interrogations several times over the course of a year and a half. On February 10, 2020, investigator Denis Shevchenko opened a criminal case against her. The investigation lasted about 3 months, it was led by the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia in Primorye Territory.

Since November 2017 there was hidden video recording of worship services in the settlement of Razdolnoye. Later, based on the materials of operational investigative activities, law enforcement officers concluded that some believers were allegedly the leaders of the banned organization, and others were participants, including Lyudmila Shut. However, while watching these recordings in court, the participants of the trial were convinced that the believers did not speak about their superiority over members of other faiths at the services, as the prosecutor claimed.

On April 28, 2020, Lyudmila Shut's case was brought to the Nadezhdinskiy District Court for consideration by judge Natalia Derevyagina. After 5 months of hearings, the state prosecutor challenged the judge, pointing out that she had previously assessed Shut's actions as a witness in another believer's case. The new judge, Lyudmila Setrakova, actually started the trial all over again, and the elderly believer on crutches had to go through all stages of the trial again.

In their testimony in court, witnesses in Shut's case confirmed that the Supreme Court decision did not ban Jehovah's Witnesses from holding meetings. They also gave a positive characteristic of Lyudmila and said that they had never heard extremist statements from her.

A total of 36 people from Primorye were taken to the millstone of the judicial system just for believing in Jehovah's God. Lyudmila's fellow villager, 77-year-old Vladimir Filippov, has already received a 6-year suspended sentence for participating in peaceful worship services.

The OSCE, the European Union, Russian human rights activists and many others condemn the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.