A Jehovah's Witness* from Karachay-Cherkessia was given a suspended sentence.

The court sentenced Yulia Pasynkova to five years' probation on charges of participating in an extremist organization.

As reported by Kavkazsky Knot, in late December 2024, the state prosecutor requested a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Jehovah's Witness* from Karachay-Cherkessia Alexei Pasynkov. Criminal cases were also brought against his wife, Yulia Pasynkova, and mother. Pasynkov was accused of organizing extremist activity.

The court sentenced Yulia Pasynkova to five years' probation on charges of participating in an extremist organization. In January, Yulia's husband, Alexei Pasynkov, was convicted on similar charges. He was given a six-year suspended sentence, the human rights project OVD-Info reported today (he is included in the register of foreign agents).

The prosecution was based on the believer's remote participation in "collective religious services." Yulia Pasynkova's mother-in-law is being tried under the same article. Over the past four years, the Pasynkova home has been searched three times, the project reports.

The Pasynkovas are raising a son with a disability; he cannot be left home alone. While the trial was ongoing, Yulia had to travel 150 kilometers from home to court hearings. "Sometimes I only had to sleep three hours to make it to ten in the morning. When I returned, my son would hug me for hours. “He could cry for a long time in the morning because he didn’t see me,” human rights activists quote her as saying.

On April 20, 2017, the Supreme Court of Russia, following a lawsuit by the Ministry of Justice, recognized the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and its 395 branches as extremist organizations, banning their activities. The consequences of this ban are covered by the “Caucasian Knot” on the thematic page “Ministry of Justice against Jehovah’s Witnesses

* 396 Russian Jehovah's Witness organizations have been designated as extremist, and their activities in Russia have been banned by court order.

** The activities of Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) are banned in Russia.