Peaceful Citizen of Maykop Sentenced to 6 Years in Penal Colony for Practicing his Religion and Reading the Bible

On March 19, 2025, the judicial panel of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Adygea upheld the harsh sentence imposed on Nikolay Saparov by the court of first instance — 6 years in a penal colony. Although the verdict has only now entered into force, the believer has already been behind bars for almost 3 years.

The defense considers any guilty verdict a violation of Saparov's right to freedom of religion. "The key evidence, a video recording of a meeting for worship, made during operational-investigative measures and examined in court, shows that N.V. Saparov and other Jehovah's Witnesses comply with the requirements of the law," said the lawyer. "During the viewing of the video of the meeting for worship, the prosecution was unable to show the court at what minute of the meeting the believers read 'prohibited' publications. The reason is simple: such publications were not at the meetings, nor did the believers discuss them."

The lawyer commented on the psycholinguistic expert study of Ruslan Levinskiy, which was used by the prosecution, but was found to be unreliable by another group of experts: "To say that the conclusions of R.V. Levinskiy are unfounded and groundless is the least you can say. This is an outrageous mixture of pure incompetence and, to all appearances, bias against Jehovah's Witnesses as a whole."

During Nikolay's detention in 2022 torture was used by law enforcement officers, including the use of electric shockers and planting compromising evidence to make him plead guilty. Even the European Union commented on the situation with the mistreatment of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia: "Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are among the most heinous violations of human rights, the inviolability of the person and the humiliation of human dignity."