{"id":5470,"date":"2021-06-04T14:06:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T11:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=5470"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:28","slug":"russia-imprisons-6-jehovahs-witnesses-for-extremism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russia-imprisons-6-jehovahs-witnesses-for-extremism\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Imprisons 6 Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses for \u2018Extremism\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Russia has sentenced six Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to multi-year prison terms on extremism charges, the religious organization said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5471\" src=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/imgs-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1360\" height=\"765\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/imgs-2.jpg 1360w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/imgs-2-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/imgs-2-560x315.jpg 560w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1360px) 100vw, 1360px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Rights advocates decry Russia\u2019s prosecutions of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses \u2014 which has been banned in Russia as an \u201cextremist\u201d group since 2017 \u2014 as infringements of religious freedom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A district court in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk sentenced engineer Andrei Stupnikov, 47, to six years in prison on charges of \u201corganizing extremist activities,\u201d the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cAccording to the prosecution, Stupnikov&#8217;s fault lies in the fact that he did not renounce his religious beliefs and participated in peaceful services, said prayers, performed chants and Bible discussions,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Meanwhile, a court in the city of Kursk has sentenced Andrei Andreev to four and a half years in a prison colony on charges of participating in an \u201cextremist\u201d group. It also sentenced Andrei Ryshkov to three years; Artem Bagratyan to two and a half years; and Bagratyan\u2019s wife Alevtina to two years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A seventh worshipper, Alexander Vospitanyuk, was handed a two-year suspended sentence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">None of the verdicts have yet entered into force and they can all be appealed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Andreev, Ryshkov and Artem Bagratyan will remain in jail, while Alevtina Bagratyan will remain under house arrest until the verdict enters into force.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Last year, the U.S.\u00a0added\u00a0Russia to its watchlist of religious freedom violators, citing the country\u2019s crackdown on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia has sentenced six Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to multi-year prison terms on extremism charges, the religious organization said Thursday. Rights advocates decry Russia\u2019s prosecutions of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses \u2014 which has been banned in Russia as an&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5470","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\/5470","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=5470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5472,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5470\/revisions\/5472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}