The “Supreme Court of Crimea” upheld an appeal by the “prosecutor’s office” against Artem Gerasimov, a Yalta supporter of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organization. This decision was made by “judge” Aleksey Posledov.
According to Gerasimov, the “court “decided to imprison him for a term of six years. Gerasimov was taken into custody in the courtroom.
Listeners who came to support the defendant were not allowed into the court building.
We would like to remind readers that, on March 20, 2019 in Yalta, the local department of the “UFSB in Crimea” opened a criminal case under part 1 Art. 282.2 against Artem Gerasimov, as suspected of continuing the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organization banned in the Russian Federation.
Gerasimov was detained and taken to Simferopol for investigative activities, after which he had to sign a written undertaking not to leave. Searches were made at six more addresses in Yalta.
The Crimean Human Rights Group experts say that the deprivation of liberty of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Crimea is a complex of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and, accordingly, falls under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.
