A Court in Nevinnomyssk Declared a Pensioner With a Severe Disability an Extremist. For His faith, Sergey Kuznetsov Was Given a 6-Year Suspended Sentence 

On April 18, 2023, Yuriy Vaskin, judge of the Nevinnomyssk city court, found Sergey Kuznetsov guilty of organizing an extremist organization for discussing the Bible with friends, praying together and singing songs, imposing on him a 6-year suspended sentence. The prosecutor requested an even longer suspended sentence - 8 years.

Sergey has been severely disabled for more than 30 years, he has practically lost his sight, has hearing problems and can hardly move - the criminal prosecution has aggravated his condition. In November 2018, he was among those whose homes were searched. A year later, the Investigative Department for Nevinnomyssk of the Investigative Committee of the Stavropol Territory opened a criminal case against Kuznetsov. The believer signed a recognizance agreement. He was also added to the Rosfinmonitoring “list of extremists”, imposing restrictions on his accounts.

On August 5, 2022, the case went to court. The accusation against Sergey was based on the testimony of a secret witness - an FSB agent under the pseudonym Sidorov. “I could not even imagine that… I would be judged not for a crime, but for my faith in the Creator,” Sergey Kuznetsov noted in his final statement. There are no facts of extremism presented in the case; there are no victims of the religious actions of the defendant. Here is how Kuznetsov himself commented on that: "It is impossible to combine the teachings of Christ and extremism, just as it is impossible to combine east and west".

Since 2018, there have been  6 convictions in criminal cases against Jehovah's Witnesses in the Stavropol Territory, and another case against a believer is being considered by the court.

The European Court of Human Rights in its decision drew attention to the fact that "the Supreme Court did not... acknowledge... the effect of its dissolution, banning and confiscation decision on the rights of 175,000 individual Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia who were put before a stark and impossible choice: to reduce their religious activities to praying in isolation, without the company and support of fellow believers and without a place for worship, or to face criminal prosecution on charges of “continuing the activities of an extremist organisation” (§ 253).