{"id":5522,"date":"2021-06-30T16:55:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T13:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=5522"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:28","slug":"russia-hands-out-longest-jail-terms-yet-to-jehovahs-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russia-hands-out-longest-jail-terms-yet-to-jehovahs-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Hands Out Longest Jail Terms Yet to Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Russian court has handed the country\u2019s longest prison sentence yet to a Jehovah\u2019s Witness, the independent news website MediaZona reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5523\" src=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/images-6.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1360\" height=\"765\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/images-6.jpg 1360w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/images-6-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/images-6-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1360px) 100vw, 1360px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">More than two dozen Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses have been sentenced and scores more are currently in prison or under house arrest since Russia declared the Christian denomination an \u201cextremist\u201d organization in 2017.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Courts began handing out longer prison terms this year, sentencing a Crimean believer to six and a half years in March and a Krasnodar Jehovah\u2019s Witness to seven and a half years in February.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Blagoveshchensk City Court, 7,000 kilometers east of Moscow, found church members Dmitry Golik and Alexei Berchuk guilty of extremism charges and jailed them to seven and eight years, according to MediaZona.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The outlet reported that judge Tatiana Studilko satisfied the state prosecution\u2019s sentence request in full.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia organization called the sentences \u201ca new record for cruelty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">MediaZona reported that law enforcement authorities had wiretapped Golik\u2019s apartment in 2018, and have kept him and his wife under surveillance for six months.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Rights groups and the U.S. State Department have condemned Russia\u2019s crackdown on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, who are known for door-to-door preaching and an alternative interpretation of the Bible, as a violation of religious freedom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses refusal to take up arms and serve in the military led the Soviet state to prosecute followers for anti-communist activities by exiling thousands to Siberia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 2017, Russia\u2019s Supreme Court designated the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses an extremist organization, accusing it of \u201cpropaganda of exclusivity\u201d and saying its activities exhibit signs of violating public safety.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Russian court has handed the country\u2019s longest prison sentence yet to a Jehovah\u2019s Witness, the independent news website MediaZona reported Wednesday. More than two dozen Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses have been sentenced and scores more are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5522","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\/5522","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=5522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5524,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5522\/revisions\/5524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}