Court in Solikamsk Heavily Fines Three Jehovah's Witnesses for Talking About the Bible

On August 18, 2023, Yevgeniy Sergeyev, judge of the Solikamsk City Court of the Perm Territory, fined 50-year-old Aleksandr Sobyanin 494,000 rubles, 61-year-old Vladimir Poltoradnev - 638,000 rubles and 54-year-old Vladimir Timoshkin - 512,000 rubles, finding them guilty of extremism for participating in peaceful meetings for worship.

The believers did not admit their guilt; they repeatedly drew the court's attention to the fact that their activity was legal. “All my actions were exclusively peaceful and did not harm anyone,” said Vladimir Poltoradnev. A similar thought was expressed by Vladimir Timoshkin: "In line with the beliefs I practice, for me it is unacceptable to promote any extremist ideas or incite enmity and hatred."

The criminal case was initiated by the Solikamsk Investigative Department of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Perm Territory in July 2020. Investigator Sergey Kanafyev charged the believers with organizing an extremist organization, pointing out that they "participated in religious meetings... discussed issues and topics of a religious nature with followers." In Solikamsk, searches were carried out in several homes of local Jehovah's Witnesses. Aleksandr Sobyanin, Vladimir Timoshkin and Vladimir Poltoradnev were sent to a temporary detention facility by law enforcement officers. Later, Sobyanin's preventive measure was changed to a ban on certain actions. Poltoradnev and Timoshkin spent two and three months under house arrest, respectively. Subsequently, they were also banned from certain actions.

The investigation lasted more than 2.5 years, and in April 2023 the case went to court. During the hearings, violations on the part of the investigation came to light. For example, as Sobyanin and Timoshkin stated, the prosecution presented as evidence of the believers' guilt audio recordings of wiretapping, in which not theirs but other voices are heard. Vladimir Poltoradnev said that he did not own the literature allegedly seized from him.

Witnesses interrogated in court described the defendants positively. The former boss of Poltoradnev said this of him: “An excellent worker! There are no complaints about him!" The believers were also positively described by their colleagues and neighbors.

The prosecutor requested 6 years imprisonment for Vladimir Timoshkin and Vladimir Poltoradnev, and requested that for Aleksandr Sobyanin Part 1 (organizing extremist activity) be replaced with Part 2 (participating) of Article 282.2 of the RF CrC and that he be sentenced to  3 years imprisonment. The verdict has not yet entered into force.

In the Perm Territory , 11 believers have already been prosecuted, 5 of them received suspended sentences, and 5 others received fines.

The UN Human Rights Council expresses concern about the prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and draws attention to the fact that "the actions of the state [to liquidate legal entities of believers] were motivated by a discriminatory goal: to stop the religious practice of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia."