The court in the Chelyabinsk Region issued a guilty verdict against Andrey Perminov; severely disabled person sentenced to 6 years' probation for believing in Jehovah God

On November 21, 2022, Ravil Nusratov, judge of the Asha City Court of the Chelyabinsk Region, found Andrey Perminov, 50, who has been a wheelchair user from his youth, guilty of extremism because of his religion and gave him a 6 years' suspended sentence.

Andrey Perminov is severely disabled. The criminal prosecution of the believer began in the summer of 2021, when investigator Yevgeniy Dolgaev opened a criminal case against him, and a series of searches took place in the Chelyabinsk Region in the homes of those whom the investigation considered to be Jehovah's Witnesses. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Chelyabinsk Region investigated the case for almost a year, after which in May 2022 it was submitted to the Ashinsky City Court. During the court hearings, it turned out that a listening device had been installed in the Perminovs' apartment. However, neither the recordings from it nor the witnesses for the prosecution could prove a violation of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but only confirmed that the accused is an ordinary believer.

Expressing his opinion of the accusation, the believer said: “All the materials of the criminal case and the evidence presented by the prosecution essentially boil down to the fact that I was a believer and held services with fellow believers. In fact, this is discrimination based on religious affiliation.”

The verdict, which corresponded with the punishment requested by the prosecutor for Perminov, has not entered into force and can be appealed. The believer insists on his complete innocence.

In the Chelyabinsk Region, 11 more Jehovah's Witnesses were subjected to criminal prosecution for their faith, including 4 women. Two elderly women, Lyudmila Salikova and Valentina Suvorova, received suspended sentences.

In June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in favor of Jehovah's Witnesses, in which it presented the result of analysis of all the logical and legal errors grossly committed by Russian courts, and came to the unequivocal conclusion that their persecution in Russia is illegal.