The Appeal in Yaroslavl Reduced the Suspended Sentence of Petr Filiznov and Andrey Vyushin by 4 Years

On October 30, 2023, the judicial board of the Yaroslavl Regional Court commuted the sentences of Petr Filiznov and Andrey Vyushin, sentencing them to 2.5 years instead of 6.5 years suspended. For the Kuznetsovs, the suspended sentence of 2.5 years remained the same.

The reason for commuting the sentence of Filiznov and Vyushin was the fact that the court reclassified the charge from part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to part 2 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Now believers are found guilty of participating in the activities of an extremist organization, and not of organizing such activities. The court considered biblical discussions and prayers, including videoconferencing, a crime. The verdict has entered into force, but believers can appeal it in cassation.

The defendants' appeal stated: "In the present criminal case, during the trial, the court could be convinced that the actions and statements of the convicts ... are exclusively peaceful in nature and do not indicate the presence of hatred or enmity. [...] None of the actions listed in this article (of the Criminal Code) was committed by any of the convicts in the present criminal case. All the prosecution witnesses questioned during the trial confirmed this."

Speaking about the examination, which formed the basis of the charges, the defense stated that "the expert's conclusions only made it possible to establish the peculiarities of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses and, on the basis of this, to identify the religious affiliation of the convicts." The defense also drew attention to the fact that "the court imposes a ban on the practice of faith, religion, which violates basic constitutional and international human rights" and that "the law does not recognize as a sign of extremism the dissemination and confession, including together with fellow believers, of the religion to which the liquidated religious associations belonged."