In Krasnodar, the Court of Cassation <br>Upheld the Appeal of Sentences for their Faith of Six Jehovah's Witnesses From the City of Gukovo: From Six-and-a-half to Seven years in a Penal Colony

On July 25, 2023 the panel of Judges of the Fourth General Jurisdiction Court of Cassation, chaired by Igor Konyaev, upheld the verdict and the appeal against it of six believers from the city of Gukovo . All of them are already serving their terms in the penal colonies.

Aleksey Goreliy, Oleg Shidlovskiy, Nikita Moiseyev, Aleksey Dyadkin, Vladimir Popov and Yevgeniy Razumov were sentenced to six-and-a-half to seven years in prison. This harsh sentence was handed down against these Jehovah's Witnesses by Judge Natalya Batura of the Gukovsky City Court in September of 2022. The believers ended up behind bars in August of 2020, immediately after investigators initiated a criminal case against them and searched their homes.

The appeal upheld the verdict of the Court of First Instance and the believers filed a complaint with the Court of Cassation. It says: “Law enforcement agencies have not established a single fact of illegal activities committed by the believers. Even . . . [during surveillance] nothing was recorded to assert that . . . Jehovah's Witnesses commit or call for illegal acts. Also, not a single person has been identified who suffered from the activities of the believers.”

The defense reminded the court of the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in which it confirmed that the actions of Jehovah's Witnesses consisting solely in the exercise of their right to freedom of religion, do not constitute a crime.The court ignored the arguments of the believers and their lawyers.

The estimated date of release from the penal colony of Oleg Shidlovskiy and Aleksey Goreliy is November 2025. The rest of the believers should be released in May-June of 2026.