Dennis Christensen Has Served Over Half His Sentence for Faith. The Law Allows His Release, but the Court Ignores the Motions

Dennis Christensen, one of Jehovah's Witnesses from Denmark, has been in custody almost four years of six appointed. According to the law, the unserved part of the believer’s punishment can be replaced by a fine, but the court has already three times declined the option. Due to health weakened by pneumonia and the overarching pandemic threat, Christensen is in danger if confined in a colony. On March 20, 2020, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture recommended to authorities “to reduce prison sentences more often,” as well as to “parole” convicts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dennis Christensen, a resident of Orel, was taken into custody on May 25, 2017. He became the first Jehovah's Witness to be convicted of his faith in modern Russia.

Christensen spent 731 days in the Oryol pre-trial detention center, and after the trial a year ago he was sent to colony No. 3 in the Kursk region. According to the Criminal Code, 1 day of detention in a pre-trial detention center is equal to 1.5 days in a colony. Consequently, to date, Christensen has spent almost 4 years in prison out of 6 appointed by the court.

Since the law allows for a prisoner's sentence to be mitigated after serving half of his sentence, Christensen sent requests to the Lgov District Court to that effect. The judges returned three of the four motions, each time citing a formal, clerical reason. The last petition was sent on April 15, 2020, there is no court response to it yet.

Addressing the court, Dennis Christensen asks to take into account the opinion of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture of March 20, 2020, according to which, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the authorities are advised to "more often resort to reducing prison terms", as well as to "parole" of convicts.

"I fear for my life in view of the likely spread of coronavirus infection on the territory of correctional colony No. 3, where I am serving my sentence," Christensen wrote in the petition, pointing out that in October 2019 he suffered a severe form of pneumonia, which made his body even more vulnerable to infection.

The verdict against Dennis Christensen, as well as the repression of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia as a whole, outraged international democratic structures , both non-governmental and state-owned. In Russia itself, the human rights community also recognized the verdict against the Dane as illegal.