Name: Silayeva Olga Sergeyevna
Date of Birth: May 11, 1988
Current status: who has served the main sentence
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (2)
Time spent in prison: 2 day in a temporary detention facility, 242 day in a pre-trial detention
Sentence: punishment in the form of 1 year of imprisonment with serving a sentence in a penal colony of general regime, with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to participation in the work of religious organizations for a period of 2 years, with restriction of liberty for a term of 6 months; to set off the time of her detention in custody in the term of serving the sentence; to be considered to have served a sentence of deprivation of liberty

Biography

On June 11, 2019 law enforcers in the Bryansk region conducted a large-scale operation against believers. As a result, a resident of Novozybkov Olga Silayeva was placed in a detention center, where she spent 8 months. Later, she was convicted along with three other believers under an extremist article. After the verdict came into force on 28 October 2020, Olga had to stay in Bryansk for six months due to restriction of her freedom.

Olga was born in 1988 in the village of Davydovo, Moscow region. She has two older brothers. As a child, she went to a theater club. She graduated with honors from a technical school as a heat engineer and worked as an engineer in the production and technical department.

Since childhood, Olga loves reading, active recreation, soccer, volleyball, making handicrafts and gifts with her own hands, inventing contests and games for children. Olga learns to draw.

Olga first heard about the Bible from her mother. Reading the Holy Scriptures convinced the girl that she had finally found the truth. "In my young years, the authority of the Bible was not questioned," says Olga. "For me, all basic truths were clear and logical. Since 2000, she decided to live by biblical standards together with her mother and brother.

After the searches, Olga had a fear. She says: "Now I live with the thought that at any moment everything can be repeated again". Staying in the detention center has seriously affected her emotional and physical health. Relatives cannot understand why a law-abiding girl, from whom there is no threat, was found guilty of extremist activities. After the verdict of conviction came into legal force on October 28, 2020 Olga had to stay in Bryansk for at least six months due to restriction of her freedom.

Case History

On September 3, 2020, the Novozybkovsky City Court found Vladimir Khokhlov, Eduard Zhinzhikov, Tatyana Shamsheva and Olga Silaeva guilty of extremist activities and sentenced them to imprisonment for a term of 12 to 15 months, followed by restriction of freedom and a ban on holding leadership positions. Since the believers had already spent about a year behind bars, they were released right in the courtroom. All of them ended up in jail after mass raids by armed security forces in 2019 in the Bryansk region. The security forces considered the usual communication of believers on religious topics to be a “criminal conspiracy”. However, during the court session it turned out that “information and files relevant to the criminal case were not found.” Due to the stress experienced, Vladimir Khokhlov suffered a hypertensive crisis, and Eduard Zhinzhikov and his wife lost an unborn child. In October 2020, the appeal upheld the verdict. In December 2021, this decision was upheld by the Court of Cassation.
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