{"id":5529,"date":"2021-07-02T12:27:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T09:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=5529"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:28","slug":"russia-jails-jehovahs-witness-member-for-record-8-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russia-jails-jehovahs-witness-member-for-record-8-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Jails Jehovah\u2019s Witness Member For Record 8 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Russian court Wednesday sentenced two members of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to seven and eight years in prison, the US-based religious movement said, accusing Moscow of setting a \u201cnew record for cruelty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Moscow outlawed the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in 2017, labelling it an extremist organisation, and nearly 60 people are currently either serving prison terms or in detention.<\/p>\n

A court in the Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk on Wednesday sentenced Dmitry Golik and Alexei Berchuk to seven and eight years in a penal colony respectively for organising the work of an extremist community, the movement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judge Tatyana Studilko set a new record for cruelty,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Berchuk\u2019s sentence was the longest handed down to a Jehovah\u2019s Witness in Russia so far, the group added.<\/p>\n

In February, a court in the southern Krasnodar region sentenced a 63-year-old member of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, Alexander Ivshin, to seven and a half years in prison.<\/p>\n

The same month a 69-year-old female member of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses faith, Valentina Baranovskaya, was sentenced to two years in prison \u2014 a first in the country\u2019s crackdown on the faith.<\/p>\n

The religious movement said Russian law enforcement officials had wiretapped Golik\u2019s apartment in 2018.<\/p>\n

Although President Vladimir Putin said in 2018 that Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses should not be considered terrorists, Moscow has continued bringing legal action against members.<\/p>\n

The Russian Orthodox Church has spoken out against the movement, with one official describing it as a \u201cdestructive sect\u201d.<\/p>\n

Founded in the United States in the late 19th century, the religious movement has been repeatedly accused of refusing to respect state symbols such as flags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Russian court Wednesday sentenced two members of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to seven and eight years in prison, the US-based religious movement said, accusing Moscow of setting a \u201cnew record for cruelty.\u201d Moscow outlawed the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5529","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\/5529","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=5529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5531,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529\/revisions\/5531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}