In Dagestan, a raid on Jehovah's Witnesses. Three men and one woman were arrested

On June 3, 2019, the Sovetsky District Court of Makhachkala sent 40-year-old Arsen Abdullaev, 38-year-old Maria Karpova, 34-year-old Anton Dergalev and 27-year-old Marat Abdulgalimov to the pre-trial detention center for 2 months. Two days earlier, on June 1, 2019, in Makhachkala, Kaspiysk, Kizlyar, and Derbent, masked and bulletproof FSB officers armed with assault rifles invaded approximately 10 homes of law-abiding local residents accused of practicing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses.

During the intrusion into the Abdullaevs' apartment, the security forces knocked the head of the family to the floor face down, and blocked his wife and son in the room. They announced a search warrant and immediately "found" 2 religious brochures in the corridor, which were planted by someone from the seizure group. After that, without being given the opportunity to eat, Arsen and his wife, Suat, were taken for interrogation to the "E" center, and later to the republican FSB, where they were interrogated until the evening. The operation was led by an FSB investigator known as Ivan Yemelyanov.

During the interrogation, the spouses were orally told that they were both suspected under the article "Organization of the activities of an extremist organization", Arsen as an "organizer", and Suat as a "participant". The investigator offered Arsen to plead guilty, but when he said that he had nothing to confess to, the investigator said: "Then there will be consequences." After that, Arsen was detained.

Dagestan became the 39th region of Russia, where the same type of criminal cases have been opened against Jehovah's Witnesses. Law enforcement officers inappropriately call the religion of citizens participation in the activities of an extremist organization. Prominent public figures of Russia, the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, the President of the Russian Federation, as well as international organizations - the European Union External Action Service, observers of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - drew attention to this problem. Jehovah's Witnesses have nothing to do with extremism and insist on their complete innocence. The Russian government has repeatedly stated that the decisions of the Russian courts on the liquidation and prohibition of organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses "do not assess the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, do not contain a restriction or prohibition to practice the above teachings individually."