Another Sentence for Faith in Kursk: A Couple and Another Jehovah's Witness Sent to Penal Colony

On December 2, 2024, Margarita Dyadyusheva, judge of the Leninskiy District Court of Kursk, sentenced three Jehovah's Witnesses: Nikolay Kupriyanskiy received 6 years in a penal colony, Dmitriy and Oksana Chausov — 2.5 years. The believers were taken into custody in the courtroom.

The criminal prosecution of Kupriyanskiy and the Chausovs began with searches in the summer of 2023. They were led by Maksim Zaitsev, an investigator of the FSB Directorate for the Kursk Region, who had previously led a case against five other Jehovah's Witnesses from Kursk. Dmitriy Chausov was sent to a pretrial detention center, which interrupted the treatment he was having for a serious illness. At the same time, the couple lost their jobs. Six months later, the court placed Dmitriy under house arrest, but due to the ban on communicating with the defendants in the case, he was separated from his wife for more than a year. All three believers spent between 6 and 15 months under house arrest.

In June 2024, the case went to court. The guilty verdict was based, among other things, on the statement of a witness who testified in court in a similar case against five believers. For discussing the Bible among friends, the prosecutor requested 7 years in a penal colony for Kupriyanskiy and 3 years in a penal colony for the Chausovs. The defendants pleaded not guilty and can appeal the verdict.