{"id":5525,"date":"2021-06-30T16:57:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T13:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=5525"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:28","slug":"russian-court-in-crimea-jails-jehovahs-witness-for-6-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russian-court-in-crimea-jails-jehovahs-witness-for-6-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Court in Crimea Jails Jehovah’s Witness for 6 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

A court in Russian-annexed Crimea on Thursday sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness to six years in prison for organizing an extremist organisation, in the latest harsh sentence against the Christian movement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Crimea’s Supreme Court at an appeal hearing sentenced Artyom Gerasimov to six years in a penal colony, the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organization said in a statement, adding that the defence will mount a further appeal against the ruling.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Russia listed the group as an extremist organization and it has since issued a series of long sentences against believers including a Danish citizen, Dennis Christensen, who was given a six-year term in February 2019.<\/p>\n

Jarrod Lopes, spokesman for Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, said that Thursday’s ruling by the Crimean Supreme Court brought “religious persecution to a new level of cruelty”.<\/p>\n

“Since the 2017 Russian Supreme Court’s ruling that effectively banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, this is the first time an appeal has resulted in a more severe punishment,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Gerasimov was initially fined in March by a court in the Black Sea city of Yalta while another believer who stood trial with him, Sergei Filatov, was jailed for six years.<\/p>\n

Investigators said a group of believers held religious services which was classified as extremist activity.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors filed an appeal after, asking for Gerasimov to serve a six and a half year term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A court in Russian-annexed Crimea on Thursday sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness to six years in prison for organizing an extremist organisation, in the latest harsh sentence against the Christian movement. Crimea’s Supreme Court at an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5525","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\/5525","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=5525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5527,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5525\/revisions\/5527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}