Mass Searches and Interrogations of Believers Took Place in the Yaroslavl Region
Yaroslavl RegionOn the morning of July 13, 2022, searches were carried out in Rybinsk at 16 addresses where Jehovah's Witnesses live; three families were also searched at their country-house. There were no arrests. Criminal cases have been initiated.
The raid was initiated by the Russian Investigative Committee for the Yaroslavl region. Special events were held with the participation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard officers, as well as detectives of the Federal Security Service of Russia in the Yaroslavl Region A. Ivanenko, V. Moskalev and D. Kovalenko. The basis was the decision of the Rybinsk City Court of July 12, 2022.
Communication equipment, electronic devices, data carriers, a digital camera, audio cassettes with music files, several copies of the Bible in different translations, and a book by a religious scholar about Jehovah's Witnesses were seized from the believers.
One of the believers said that 7 people came to her with a search. They did not show their official identification, but showed a search warrant. One of the officers was armed. The woman recalls: “It was very scary. Violence was not used, but for me the interrogation was real torture, since my health is very poor, I fell into faint. The interrogation of the believer lasted about 4 hours.
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The woman's son and his wife were also searched. First, the security forces invaded their dacha. The search was attended by an investigator of the Investigative Committee, Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Bruders, a representative of the FSB and two witnesses, who, according to the victims, were police officers and assisted in conducting the search. The believer's wife was taken away for interrogation to the investigative committee, and he himself was taken to the apartment in the city to continue the search. There he found that the door to the dwelling had been broken down. Later, he was taken for interrogation to the building of the local lyceum, where other believers from Rybinsk were also interrogated. The man was told that he was a witness in the case against Yevgenia Samoilova and Olga Golovacheva (part 2 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), which would be conducted by Dmitry Kolesnikov, an investigator for especially important cases.
The security forces also came with a search to the family of 60-year-old believers, where the wife is disabled since childhood. One police officer introduced himself as a neighbor and asked to open the door, another, entering, began to record what was happening on video, but at the request of the owner of the house, he stopped filming. The couple's bank cards, on which pensions and salaries were accrued, were confiscated. They were later interrogated separately from each other.
During a search in the apartment of Alexander Belyakov, the security forces demanded him to explain for what purpose he installed a program for video conferencing. According to the believer, the law enforcement officers behaved rudely: “They ordered me to stand up facing the interior door, raise my hands up, turning them palms out, and at the same time spread my legs as wide as possible. They said that I would stand like that until I told the password from the mail. There were threats of physical force." After the search, the believer was interrogated at the FSB department, and then taken to the Investigative Committee. All these events lasted about 15 hours. A criminal case has been initiated against the man.
During a search in the apartment of Alexander Belyakov, the security forces demanded him to explain for what purpose he installed a program for video conferencing. According to the believer, the law enforcement officers behaved rudely: “They ordered me to stand up facing the interior door, raise my hands up, turning them palms out, and at the same time spread my legs as wide as possible. They said that I would stand like that until I told the password from the mail. There were threats of physical force." After the search, the believer was interrogated at the FSB department, and then taken to the Investigative Committee. All these events lasted about 15 hours. A criminal case has been initiated against the man.
The day after the raid, on July 14, one of the believers, 45-year-old Dmitriy Lebedev, was summoned for interrogation, where he was told that a criminal case had also been opened against him. The believer was threatened with 6 years in prison.
On July 27, Dmitriy Lebedev's house was searched again. Earlier, during the first raid in Rybinsk, an unknown man called Dmitriy from his mother's phone and said from the name of ambulance doctors that he needed to come to her. When he arrived at the house, he was met by police officers and taken away for interrogation. It also became known that on July 27, another believer, Yuriy Gusev, was taken to the Investigative Committee. Information regarding him is being specified.
In April 2021, mass searches were already taking place in Yaroslavl and Rybinsk. Criminal cases were initiated against 4 peaceful believers, now they are under a ban on certain actions.
