The Court Denied Aleksandr Nikolayev Early Release From the Penal Colony

On April 27, 2023, the Apsheronsky District Court of the Krasnodar Territory denied Aleksandr Nikolayev early release from the penal colony. His release is planned for the end of September 2023.

In December 2021, the Abinsky District Court sentenced Aleksandr Nikolayev, a father of many children, to 2.5 years in prison for participating in an online meeting for worship in which he read a passage from the Bible aloud. The believer spent 13 months in pre-trial detention and since February 2023 he has been in a penal colony.

In the Khadyzhensk penal colony, Nikolayev was provoked when one of the officers tried to rip off the badge from his uniform, the absence of which is usually viewed as breaking the rules.

Aleksandr does not lose heart and is grateful for letters of support from different countries: Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In the Krasnodar Territory, already 14 Jehovah's Witnesses have been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; five of them have served their main sentences.

At the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev explained in October 2021: “Actions that do not contain signs of extremism and consist solely of the exercise of the right to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, including through the performance of religious rites and ceremonies, do not constitute a crime”.