Once Again, More Than 6 Years in Prison for Their Faith. In Tynda, Retrial Case Against Four of Jehovah's Witnesses Ended With Another Harsh Sentence

On June 23, 2023, the Tyndinskiy District Court of the Amur Region again sentenced four of Jehovah's Witnesses to long prison terms: Vladimir Bukin, Valeriy Slashchev, and Sergey Yuferov were given 6 years and 4 months, and Mikhail Burkov was given 6 years and 2 months. They were taken into custody in the courtroom.

Six months earlier, the court of appeal overturned the decision of the court of first instance due to significant violations of the RF Criminal Procedural Code. The believers were then released from the pretrial detention center, where they had each spent 64 days. As a result of the second consideration of the case, Judge Valentina Brykova merely reduced by two months the terms imposed on Bukin, Slashchev and Yuferov. The verdict has not yet entered into force, and the believers have the right to appeal it.

On November 11, 2019, FSB Investigator V. S. Obukhov initiated a criminal case against four residents of Tynda because of their faith. A week later, a wave of searches and interrogations swept through Tynda. The believers were charged with organizing the activity of an extremist organization (Article 282.2(1) of the RF CrC) because of holding meetings for worship and “at-home Bible studies.” The investigation also charged them with of involving others in extremist activity (Article 282.2(1.1) of the RF CrC) because of Bukin, Yuferov and Slashchev's conversations about the Bible with informant D. Nurakov, who in 2018 began collecting information about local believers.

In the Amur Region, 23 of Jehovah's Witnesses have faced prosecution for their faith. Aleksey Berchuk and Dmitriy Golik are serving long terms in a penal colony; Konstantin Moiseyenko and Vasiliy Reznichenko were given suspended sentences. Another seven men are on trial, defending their right to practice the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. Most of the cases against the believers in this region were initiated by FSB Investigator Obukhov.

The June 2022 judgment of the ECHR points out that believers have the right to practice their religion "individually" or "in community with others" and that this right “has always been regarded as an essential part of the freedom of religion.” (§ 268)