A Primorye prosecutor requested six-and-a-half year correctional colony sentence for the 77-year-old believer Vladimir Filippov

On December 29, 2020, the Nadezhdinsky District Court held a hearing in the criminal case against a former military officer from the village of Razdolnoye. Because of his belief in Jehovah's God, the prosecutor's office charged him with organizing the activities of a banned organization. A date for announcing the verdict has not yet been set.

State prosecutor Maria Koval (assistant to the prosecutor) recommended judge Diana Merzlyakova to sentence the 77-year-old pensioner to 6 years 6 months imprisonment in a penal colony. The prosecutor also wants to prohibit him to participate in public organizations for another 2 years and to order him to register every month for 1 year after his release, not to leave home at night, not to attend public events, not to change his place of residence and not to leave the Nadezhdinsky municipal district without the consent of supervisory bodies.

There are no victims in Filippov's case. Filippov himself does not admit his guilt; he claims that he was simply praying and discussing the Gospel. The believer has been under house arrest for over nine months now. Before that, operatives put him under surveillance.

The case against Vladimir Filippov was initiated on July 1, 2019. However, a year earlier, on July 19, 2018, as part of another case in which Filippov was formally a witness, armed law enforcement officers in masks rudely broke into the dwellings of believers in the village of Razdolnoye. One of them punched Vladimir Filippov in the face. A year later his apartment was searched again as part of the case against Filippov, after which his wife, Lubov, suffered a hypertensive crisis and had to call an ambulance. On January 22, 2020, the Nadezhdinskiy District Court sanctioned the third search in the home of peaceful believers. Both cases were investigated by the Investigative Division of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Primorye Territory.

The criminal case is based on video recordings of worship services from 2017 and audio recordings of conversations about the Bible with a certain B. N. Ulyankin, who portrayed an interest in the Bible. The investigation into the case lasted just under 2 years. On May 19, 2020 it went to court. The hearing lasted another 7 months.

The prosecutor's office accused the peaceful pensioner of "convening meetings, organizing religious speeches and religious services... Distribution of literature with extremist content, implementation of preaching activities" - all this was interpreted as extremism. After viewing the video of the worship service in court, it became clear that Filippov only participated in prayer and chanting, and gave a short biblical speech about showing kindness to people. In his testimony, Vladimir Filippov noted that "praying to God is not a violation of the law. Learning biblical instruction is not a violation of the law. Talking to other people who express a desire to speak on spiritual topics is not a violation of the law."

Vladimir Filippov is a former military man who served for 27 years. His father died at the front shortly before he was born. As a young man Vladimir was a member of the Krasnozersk district hockey team. For the last 25 years he has been studying the Bible in depth.

Russian human rights organizations, as well as the international community, consider the criminal prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia unlawful. The Russian government has repeatedly stated that decisions of Russian courts to liquidate and ban Jehovah's Witnesses organizations "do not assess the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, nor do they contain a restriction or ban on the individual practice of the aforementioned doctrine.