MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. A Moscow district court has passed a six-year suspended sentence upon two members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious group (outlawed in Russia as an extremist organization), the court’s press service told TASS on Monday.
"The court found Alexander Serebryakov and Yury Temirbulatov guilty under part 1, article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Court (Organization of the activities of a religious group outlawed by court due to extremist activities). Each of them was sentenced to a prison term of six years. The sentences were ruled to be suspended with a probation period of four years," the Moscow Golovinsky district court said.
Along with that, the court imposed a two-year ban on organizing religious groups on both of them.
The two men were arrested by Moscow’s Savelovsky district court in February 2021 on charges of organizing a management center of the Jehovah’s Witnesses group.
Jehovah’s Witnesses is an international religious organization that supports offbeat views on the essence of the Christian faith and provides special interpretations of many commonly accepted notions. In August 2017, the Russian Justice Ministry included Jehovah’s Witnesses and its 395 local religious branches to the list of organizations outlawed in the country. On April 20, 2017, the Russian Supreme Court declared Jehovah’s Witnesses and all affiliated regional organizations an extremist organization. The organization’s activities are outlawed in Russia.