Court of Cassation in Kemerovo Upheld Sergey Ananin's 6-Year Prison Term

Sergey Ananin from the Kemerovo Region is preparing to serve a 6-year term for his faith. On January 30, 2024, the panel of judges of the Eighth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction in Kemerovo denied his cassation appeal against the verdict.

Sergey Ananin was taken into custody on March 31, 2023, immediately after the Belovo City Court handed down a harsh sentence. That was when judge Galina Proshchenko sent the believer to a penal colony for 6 years. In June of the same year, a court of appeal upheld the decision of the court of first instance .

Actually, the believer was found guilty of extremism only for communicating with fellow believers via video conferencing. In the cassation appeal, the lawyer noted: "In the course of the trial, it was reliably established that the actions of the convicted S.V. Ananin were in fact nothing more than expressing his attitude to religion, for which there is no criminal liability, as the RF Supreme Court emphasized." Sergey Ananin highlighted: "In fact, the courts simply refused to apply the directly applicable norm of Article 28 of the RF Constitution, which guarantees everyone freedom of conscience and freedom of religion."

The lawyer also called the verdict unjust, since the courts did not take into account the state of health of the defendant, who suffered a heart attack on the eve of the searches. He said that under the conditions of imprisonment, Ananin's health could be irreparably harmed.

Contrary to the decision of the ECHR and the explanations of the Plenum of the RF Supreme Court, judges continue to pass guilty verdicts on Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the country. In the Kemerovo Region, 15 believers have already been sentenced to various punishments for their faith.