Аppeal in Krasnodar Mitigated the Sentence for Faith to Aleksandr Shcherbina, but He Will Still Go to Jail for 2 Years

On June 24, 2021, the judge of the Krasnodar Regional Court, Vadim Kuksa, did not satisfy the appeal of Aleksandr Shcherbina, but softened the sentence: the believer will spend not 3, but 2 years in a general regime colony. Aleksandr insists on his innocence and has the right to appeal the verdict on appeal.

On April 29, 2020, a search was carried out in Aleksandr's house, after which he was interrogated as a witness in the Ivshin case. And in November of the same year, O. I. Komissarov, an investigator of the FSB Directorate for the Krasnodar Territory, opened a criminal case against Shcherbina himself, accusing him of extremism for meeting with fellow believers and discussing the Bible. On December 2, 2020, a preventive measure was chosen for the believer in the form of a recognizance not to leave, and on April 6, 2021, the judge of the Abinsk District Court of the Krasnodar Territory, Sergey Mikhin, sentenced him to 3 years in a general regime colony. Immediately after the announcement of the verdict, Aleksandr was taken into custody and later sent to colony No. 9 in the city of Khadyzhensk.

Aleksandr Shcherbina was actually accused of using the right guaranteed to every citizen of the Russian Federation — Article 28 of the Constitution. All his activities were exclusively religious in nature, but the court equated Aleksandr with dangerous criminals — extremists.

A few months earlier, 2 more civilians of the village of Kholmskaya were sentenced for "extremism": 63-year-old Aleksandr Ivshin — for 7.5 years, and 47-year-old Oleg Danilov — for 3 years in prison. In total, 16 believers are being prosecuted in the region.

Russian and foreign leaders and organizations unanimously condemn the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. Among them is Heiner Bielefeldt, professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In his interview, he said the following: “If we talk about legislation on extremism, everyone agrees that it is important to fight extremist tendencies, but the concept of 'extremism' remains completely blurred, which creates a kind of access for the authorities, a loophole, an excuse to do what they do. want. And Jehovah's Witnesses are the perfect scapegoat. "