{"id":5409,"date":"2021-05-21T11:46:17","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T08:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=5409"},"modified":"2022-12-19T21:35:36","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T18:35:36","slug":"elderly-infirm-woman-convicted-on-extremism-charges-in-russia-for-being-a-jehovahs-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/elderly-infirm-woman-convicted-on-extremism-charges-in-russia-for-being-a-jehovahs-witness\/","title":{"rendered":"Elderly, Infirm Woman Convicted On Extremism Charges In Russia For Being A Jehovah&#8217;s Witness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A 73-year-old Jehovah\u2019s Witness in Russia&#8217;s Far Eastern Primorye region has been handed a four-year suspended sentence on extremism charges amid an ongoing crackdown on the religious group that has been banned in the country since 2017.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5410\" src=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/imgs-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1597\" height=\"898\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/imgs-4.jpg 1597w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/imgs-4-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/imgs-4-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/imgs-4-560x315.jpg 560w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1597px) 100vw, 1597px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On May 19, a district court in the town of Volno-Nadezhdinskoye found Lyudmila Shut, an elderly woman who can hardly move due to her medical condition,\u00a0guilty\u00a0of taking part in the activities of an &#8220;extremist organization.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/embed\/player\/0\/31151427.html?type=video\" width=\"750\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In her final statement at the hearing, Shut denied taking part in the activities of any extremist groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am not a criminal and I am not an extremist. I do not know such a terrible word at all. This is something alien to me and completely contradicts to my religious views,&#8221; Shut said.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has condemned Russia&#8217;s ongoing crackdown on Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses and other peaceful religious minorities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The same court recently handed a six -year suspended sentence to a 77-year-old Jehovah\u2019s Witness in March on the same charge.<\/p>\n<p>For decades, the Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p>The Christian group is known for door-to-door preaching, close Bible study, rejection of military service, and not celebrating national and religious holidays or birthdays.<\/p>\n<p>Since the faith was outlawed in Russia, many Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses have been imprisoned in both Russia and the Russia-annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea on the Black Sea.<\/p>\n<p>According to the group, dozens of Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses have either been convicted of extremism or are in pretrial detention.<\/p>\n<p>The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center has recognized dozens of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who&#8217;ve been charged with or convicted of extremism as political prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 73-year-old Jehovah\u2019s Witness in Russia&#8217;s Far Eastern Primorye region has been handed a four-year suspended sentence on extremism charges amid an ongoing crackdown on the religious group that has been banned in the country&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5409"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5412,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions\/5412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}