Yevgeniy Semenov
Yevgeniy Semenov
On February 20, 2025, the Cherkessk City Court sentenced Yevgeniy Semenov to 6 years and 3 months in a penal colony. Judge Azamat Kubov considered peaceful conversations with people about God to be the organization of the activities of an extremist organization, participation in it and the involvement of other persons in it.
Addressing the court, Yevgeniy said that it was biblical principles that helped him in his youth to change his life course and, having served his term, to become an honest, decent person. But in August 2023, he found himself behind bars again, this time because of his faith. Then the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Semenov under an extremist article. In May 2024, the trial began. Soon all the accounts of the believer were blocked.
The case was based on covert recordings of conversations between Semenov and two women who pretended to be interested in the Bible. In court, the defense pointed out that the case "did not present a single fact and evidence of illegal activity but instead presented a mass of evidence of the implementation of my client's personal religious activities." "Thus, the prosecution equates religious actions with extremist actions, which the law of the Russian Federation does not allow," the defense believes. At the same time, none of the interviewed witnesses in the case indicated that they would have heard any extremist calls from Semenov.
This is the sixth conviction in the region. The cases of five more Jehovah's Witnesses from Karachay-Cherkessia are awaiting a court decision in their criminal cases because of their peaceful religious activities.
