On 14 January, the occupant’s Gagarinsky District Court of Sevastopol sentenced Jehovah’s Witnesses Viktor Kudinov and Serhii Zhyhalov to 6 years in prison.
This ‘decision’ was announced by ‘judge’ Serhii Korotun.
According to the organisation, the indictment states that the defendants took part ‘in the preparation and conduct of worship services, which is expressed in setting tasks for other participants, calling participants to answer, and in the subsequent expression of gratitude for these answers’.
During the closed court hearings, the defence drew the court’s attention to the fact that the religious expertise was made with violations. For example, the sources used by the expert were not scientifically based.
As the CHRG reported, on 24 August 2022, searches of Jehovah’s Witnesses took place in Sevastopol, after which 53-year-old Viktor Kudinov and 51-year-old Serhii Zhyhalov were arrested.
As reported by the Crimean Human Rights Group, on 20 April 2017, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognised Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organisation and banned its activities in the Russian Federation. On 16 August 2017, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation added the Crimean branches of Jehovah’s Witnesses to the list of extremist organisations. In 2018, the criminal prosecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses began. In 2020, the first sentences to imprisonment were passed against members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organisation.
The CHRG considers these trials to be a violation of both human rights and international humanitarian law. The persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses is a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion). In addition, the persecution of persons who are not criminals under Ukrainian law is a violation of Article 7 of the ECHR (No punishment without law), as under international humanitarian law, the Russian Federation is not entitled to apply its own criminal law in the occupied territory. Violations of the ECHR fall under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. On the other hand, the application of the Russian Criminal Code in Crimea is a violation of Geneva Convention IV and a war crime that falls under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
