In Udmurtia, The Sentence of Three Jehovah's Witnesses from Izhevsk Came into Force: After the Decision of the Appeal, The Believers Will Go to the Colony

On October 1, 2024, the Supreme Court of Udmurtia upheld the conviction of Maksim Derendyaev, Aleksandr Kutin and Sergey Ashikhmin. Each of them was sentenced to three years in penal colony on charges of organizing the activities of an extremist organization. The hearing was attended by 18 people, including believers' relatives.

The three men filed appeals against the verdict of the court of first instance while in jail — they were taken into custody in the courtroom immediately after the verdict was announced in May 2024. They plead innocent. Sergey Ashikhmin noted in his appeal: "The verdict is illegal, since I am being persecuted and punished only for being a Christian -- Jehovah's Witness, practicing my religion in non-prohibited ways." Andrey Kutin stated: "The verdict does not contain a single statement of mine that is extremist. The court has not established against which specific social group I acted, when, in what way, for what purpose and what consequences this led to." And Maksim Derendyaev noted: "All my actions were completely peaceful. The prosecution did not claim that I incited violence or religious hatred and enmity." The believers also stressed that the court of first instance did not prove the existence of a motive of religious hatred or enmity in their actions.

Thus, the second sentence in Udmurtia came into force: earlier, the regional supreme court approved large fines for Mikhail Potapov and Sergey Gobozev from Votkinsk.