On September 16, 2024, in Samara, law enforcement officers detained Samvel Babayan, who professes the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite the poor health of the believer, the court sent him to a pre-trial detention center. A criminal case on extremism has been opened against the man.

These events were preceded by a search and interrogations, which took place on the same day. The security forces took Samvel, his wife and 17-year-old son to the local department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The young man was taken separately from his parents, on the way a police officer threatened him with a long term of imprisonment in a colony if he did not incriminate his relatives.

Investigator Yuriy Prokopov charged Samvel Babayan with organizing the activity of an extremist organization (part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The decision to arrest was made by the judge of the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Samara, Irina Velmina — the hearing was held on September 18, by that time the believer had spent two days in the temporary detention center.

Samvel Babayan is not the only one whose home was invaded by law enforcement officers on September 16. At least five other searches of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Samara are known to have taken place.

Since 2021, ten of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been convicted in the Samara Region.