Name: Zagulin Dmitriy Nikolayevich
Date of Birth: December 29, 1973
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.3 (1)
Time spent in prison: 164 day in a pre-trial detention, 859 day in prison
Sentence: punishment in the form of 3 years 6 months of imprisonment with serving the sentence in a correctional colony of general regime
Term of imprisonment: until March 2026
Currently held in: Correctional Colony № 8, Amur Region

Zagulin Dmitriy Nikolayevich, born 1973, Correctional Colony № 8, Amur Region, Ul. Albazinskaya, 45, Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region, 675010

Letters of support can be sent by regular mail or through the F-pismo system. To pay for service with the card of a foreign bank use Prisonmail.

Parcels and parcels should not be sent because of the limit on their number per year.

Note: discussing topics related to criminal prosecution is not allowed in letters; languages other than Russian will not pass.

Biography

In May 2018, a mass raid on peaceful believers took place in Birobidzhan. The operation, codenamed "Judgment Day", involved 150 law enforcement personnel. Dmitriy Zagulin was accused of financing the activities of an extremist organization. Four and a half years later, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to three and a half years in prison merely because of his faith in Jehovah God.

Dmitriy was born in 1973 in Khabarovsk. He has a younger brother. As a child, Dmitriy wanted to join the army, so he engaged in martial arts and parachuting.

In 1991, Dmitriy began to study the Bible. This prompted him to reconsider his outlook on life. Soon he wrote an application to replace military service with alternative civilian service. At that time, refusal to serve in the army could lead to criminal prosecution, but the unexpected happened: the inspector of the military registration and enlistment office made a note in his personal file: "suspend until the ACS [alternative civilian service] law is passed." Dmitriy recalls that, perhaps, then he was not yet ready for imprisonment, and considers what happened a real miracle.

Dmitriy graduated from the Railway Transport College and worked for the Russian Railways company for many years. He was considered a valuable employee of the department, which was confirmed by numerous awards and gifts. After the searches in May 2018, the boss told Dmitriy that FSB had come to him and demanded that he dismiss the believer, but the boss vouched for him. However, in November 2021, Zagulin was fired in connection with the lawsuit, explaining this by the request of the FSB.

In 1998, Dmitriy moved to Birobidzhan for family reasons, where he lives up to this day. In 2012, he married Tatyana. Together they are raising her son, who goes to school and, like his mother, loves sports, plays the guitar and sings.

Tatyana was also prosecuted after her husband. Their loved ones are worried and do not understand why the believers deserved such unfair treatment.

Case History

In May 2018, in Birobidzhan a special FSB operation with the participation of 150 law enforcement officers, code-named "Judgement Day", took place. More than 20 families of Jehovah's Witnesses have become victims of criminal prosecution, including Alam Aliyev,Valeriy Kriger, Sergey Shulyarenko, and Dmitriy Zagulin. The believers were charged with holding meetings for worship, which the investigation deemed to be organizing the activity of an extremist organization and financing it. They spent more than 5 months in pretrial detention. In November 2020, the case went to court. The hearings lasted more than 2 years, and in December 2022, the court sentenced Zagulin to 3.5 years, Aliyev to 6.5 years, and Shulyarenko and Kriger to 7 years in a penal colony. The court of appeal upheld the terms of Zagulin and Aliyev and reduced those of Shulyarenko and Kriger by 3 months. The court of cassation upheld the verdict in March 2024. The wives of three of the convicted persons were also prosecuted: Svetlana Monis, Tatyana Zagulina and Natalya Kriger. In September 2023, Sergey Shulyarenko's wedding took place in the penal colony.
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