75-year-old Vladimir Suvorov from Chelyabinsk was sentenced to 6-year suspended sentence for faith in Jehovah

On July 1, 2021, Oksana Mitina, a judge of the Metallurgical District Court of Chelyabinsk, found an elderly believer guilty of organizing the activities of a banned organization. She sentenced Vladimir Suvorov to 6 years of conditional imprisonment.

The believer will be deprived of the right to engage in activities related to leadership and participation in the activities of religious organizations for a period of 5 years, and will also be restricted in freedom for 10 months with a trial period of 4 years.

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

Although there is not a single victim in the case, the prosecutor asked the court to sentence Vladimir Suvorov to 7 years in prison.

The 75-year-old believer suffers from hypertension and serious heart problems. In 2013, he lost his only son. In March 2021, Vladimir's wife, Valentina, received a 2-year suspended sentence for her faith.

The case was initiated on January 16, 2020 by Aleksandr Chepenko, an investigator for the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the Chelyabinsk Region. The investigation was entrusted to 8 investigative officers and lasted almost 10 months. In November 2020, the case was filed with the Metallurgical District Court of Chelyabinsk. The case materials amounted to 17 volumes, more than 200 witnesses were interviewed. The court hearings lasted about 8 months.

In July 2020, Vladimir Suvorov was included in the "List of Terrorists and Extremists" of Rosfinmonitoring, which is why he was limited in terms of financial support from the state. The believer spent about a year under recognizance agreement.

Speaking his last word in court, Suvorov noted: “Neither the Supreme Court, nor the Constitutional Court, nor the Government of the Russian Federation considers it illegal to practice the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. [...] However, the prosecution presents me with a choice: either I refuse to worship God in the circle of people close to me, or I will be prosecuted. I believe that it is illegal to force me, on pain of criminal liability, to go against faith and conscience."

Vladimir, a former theater actor, has been a Jehovah's Witness for 28 years. He notes: “I am charged with communicating on biblical topics. All over the world, Jehovah's Witnesses are known to cherish family ties and to have strong marriages. This is not because they are better or worse than others. Not. Jehovah's Witnesses are ordinary people with their own positive qualities and their own shortcomings. But the principles of the Bible are important to us. "

In total, criminal cases were opened against 4 believers in the Chelyabinsk region. Two of them have already been sentenced. Dmitry Vinogradov and Valentina Suvorova received a suspended sentence of two years in prison. The case of Pavel Popov is at the stage of preliminary investigation.

The prosecution regarded Suvorov's conversations with people about God, his holding of divine services, the performance of chants and prayers as a crime, and the presence of literature in electronic form was declared "measures of conspiracy." Vladimir himself has repeatedly emphasized at the trial that he only dealt with matters familiar to any believer.

The groundlessness of the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses on the basis of religion has been repeatedly emphasized by Russian and foreign experts. In May 2021, the association of former prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp (Lagergemeinschaft Dachau) sent an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin condemning the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses.