Gerasimov Artem

Name: Gerasimov Artem Vyacheslavovich
Date of Birth: January 13, 1985
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1)
Time spent in prison: 1610 day in prison
Sentence: Punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 6 years in a penal colony of general regime
Currently held in: Penal Colony No. 10 in Rostov Region
Address for correspondence: Gerasimov Artem Vyacheslavovich, born 1985, IK No 10 in Rostov Region, per. Kazachiy, 22, g. Rostov-on-Don, Russia, 344033

Letters of support can be sent by regular mail or through the «zonatelecom».

Parcels and parcels should not be sent because of the limit on their number per year.

Note: discussing topics related to criminal prosecution is not allowed in letters; languages other than Russian will not pass.

Biography

In the spring of 2019, FSB officers detained Jehovah's Witness Artem Gerasimov in Yalta. The believer was accused of extremism and sentenced to a fine of 400,000 rubles. However, in 2020, the Supreme Court of Crimea toughened the sentence, replacing the fine with 6 years in prison. Artem was sent to the colony.

Artem was born in 1985 in Yalta. As a child, he was fond of table tennis and wrestling.

Artem recalls: “I have experienced how the Bible can positively influence life, how it can support even in difficult times. The hardest period in my life was my teenage years, when in five years I lost six loved ones, including my father. As I remember, from the very beginning of my conscious life I was interested in spiritual questions, questions about God. But later, when you lose relatives one by one, it is easy to become an atheist, not understanding why, as a child, ‘God takes away’ my loved ones. But fortunately, it was during that period that I began to study the Bible. And it was a great comfort for me to learn that Jehovah, as Jesus said, is not 'the God of the dead, but of the living, for with Him all are alive.”

Artem acquired the profession of a pastry chef, but later worked in various working specialties. Together with friends he loved to play volleyball and go on camping trips with overnight stays in the picturesque places of Crimea.

When riot police broke into Artem's house, his brother, who did not share his religious convictions, said: “Why did you come to Artem? After all, he walks around the city with the Bible, not with a machine gun." Neighbors and work colleagues speak of the believer as an exceptionally peaceful person.

Case History

In March 2019, Artyom Gerasimov, a cook by profession, was accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization. So the investigation called the peaceful conversations of the believer on religious topics and reading the Bible in a close circle, seeing in this a “public danger.” The apartments of Gerasimov and other believers were searched. A year later, the Yalta City Court sentenced him to a fine of 400 thousand rubles, but on June 4, 2020, the Supreme Court of Crimea toughened the sentence, replacing the fine with 6 years in prison. After Artyom was sent to the colony, the FSB officers began to “develop” his friends and acquaintances.
Timeline
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