{"id":848,"date":"2011-11-22T18:50:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T18:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2011\/11\/22\/criminal-conviction-in-russia-seen-as-an-attack-on-freedom-of-expression-and-religion\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:32","slug":"criminal-conviction-in-russia-seen-as-an-attack-on-freedom-of-expression-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/criminal-conviction-in-russia-seen-as-an-attack-on-freedom-of-expression-and-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal conviction in Russia seen as an \u201cattack on freedom of expression and religion\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">GORNO-ALTAYSK, Russia\u2014An appeal hearing contesting the criminal conviction of Aleksandr Kalistratov will be heard by the Supreme Court of the Altay Republic on December 22, 2011. Charged with inciting religious hatred, Kalistratov, one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, was acquitted for lack of evidence in April 2011. Unsatisfied, the prosecution appealed and the Supreme Court of the Altay Republic ordered a retrial with a different judge that resulted in a reversal of the not-guilty verdict.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cDuring the retrial, the same evidence was examined and the same witnesses testified, but the new judge reached an opposite conclusion,\u201d stated Kalistratov\u2019s attorney, Viktor Zhenkov. He continued: \u201cIt seems as though the ruling to acquit was overturned specifically so that a different judge would interpret the facts differently.\u201d Mikhail Odintsov, of the Russian Ombudsman\u2019s Office, made the following assessment of the verdict: \u201cIn a contradiction of all the evidence, the lawful actions of Aleksandr Kalistratov have been interpreted as a crime.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Amnesty International described the verdict as \u201can attack on freedom of expression and religion,\u201d adding that Aleksandr Kalistratov&#8217;s conviction \u201ccontradicts Russia&#8217;s own legislation as well as its obligations under international human rights law,\u201d and concluded that the verdict \u201cshould be quashed.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Media Contacts:<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">J. R. Brown, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5600<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Russia: Grigory Martynov, tel. +7 812 702 2691<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Belgium: European Association of Jehovah\u2019s Christian Witnesses, tel. +32 2 782 0015<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Source: http:\/\/www.jw-media.org\/rus\/20111122.htm<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 GORNO-ALTAYSK, Russia\u2014An appeal hearing contesting the criminal conviction of Aleksandr Kalistratov will be heard by the Supreme Court of the Altay Republic on December 22, 2011. Charged with inciting religious hatred, Kalistratov, one of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","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=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5709,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/5709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}