Another Guilty Verdict for Faith in Primorye Territory. Jehovah's Witness Irina Buglak Given 2.5-Year Suspended Sentence

On June 6, 2023, Darya Didur, judge of the Partizansk City Court of the Primorye Territory, found Irina Buglak guilty of participating in the activity of a banned association and gave her a 2.5-year suspended sentence.

The prosecutor requested the court impose a 6-year and 5-month suspended sentence on the believer, with a 6-year deprivation of the right to engage in any activity related to leading and participating in the work of religious and public organizations and a 4-year probabtion period. The verdict has not entered into force and can be appealed. The believer maintains her innocence.

The case was initiated on April 19, 2019. On the same day, the apartment of an 80-year-old woman, whom Buglak visited, was searched. Due to the stress, Irina’s left arm became numb. Nevertheless, the believer was arrested and she spent a day in the local temporary detention facility. During the interrogation, she learned that the law enforcement agencies had been collecting information about her since 2018: they were spying on her social media and listening to telephone conversations. The next day, the court imposed a preventive measure of detention on Irina. She spent 6 months in a detention center and 3.5 months under house arrest.

In January 2020, the case went to court, but a year later it was returned to the prosecutor. The retrial of the case began in October 2021. Two months prior to this, judge Mariya Sundyukova was recused — she was the one who ruled to arrest Irina Buglak in 2019. Gross violations committed during the investigation were revealed at the trial. For example, entire paragraphs of witness testimonies corresponded word for word and contained the same errors. It was also revealed that during the interrogation, which lasted until the morning, the investigator had put pressure on the believer, demanding she sign the protocol which included wording he had added.

In her final statement, Irina stated: “The prosecutor is not finding any signs of extremist activity, but only how I express my faith. Tell me specifically what extremist actions did I commit? What was my intent? Once again I emphasize: I am not on trial for extremist actions, but for my faith in God.” She added: “Extremism is when people believe that members of other religions should be killed, beaten or otherwise persecuted. But such views contradict my beliefs. I live by the principle ‘you must love your neighbor as yourself’ and the well-known golden rule ‘all things, that you want people to do to you, you also must do to them’”.

The verdict against Irina Buglak is not the first against Jehovah's Witnesses from Partizansk. In September 2022, Liya Maltseva was convicted on similar charges — she was given a 2-year and 3-month suspended sentence. In total, 48 of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Primorye Territory are being prosecuted for their faith.

The European Court of Human Rights, in its recent judgment concerning Jehovah's Witnesses, emphasized that legal formalities should not be used to hinder the freedom of association of groups disliked by the authorities or advocating ideas that the authorities would like to suppress (§ 243).