Once Again, More Than Six Years in Prison for Faith. In the Town of Tynda, the Retrial of the Case of Four of Jehovah's Witnesses Ended With Another Harsh Sentence

On June 23, 2023, the Tyndinskiy District Court of the Amur Region again sentenced four of Jehovah's Witnesses to long prison terms: Vladimir Bukin, Valeriy Slashchev, and Sergey Yuferov were given six years and four months, and Mikhail Burkov was given six years and two months. They were taken into custody in the courtroom.

Six months earlier, the appellate court overturned the decision of the first instance court due to significant violations of the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation. The believers were then released from the pre-trial detention center, where they had each spent 64 days. As a result of the second consideration of the case, Judge Valentina Brykova merely reduced by two months the terms imposed on Bukin, Slashchev and Yuferov. The verdict has not yet entered into force, and the believers have the right to appeal it.

On November 11, 2019, FSB Investigator V. S. Obukhov initiated a criminal case against four residents of the town of Tynda because of their faith. A week later, a wave of searches and interrogations swept through Tynda. Believers were accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization (Article 282.2(1) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) because of holding worship services and “at-home Bible studies.” The investigation also accused them of involving others in extremist activity (Article 282.2(1.1) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) because of Bukin, Yuferov and Slashchev's conversations about the Bible with informant D. Nurakov, who in 2018 began collecting information about local believers.

In the Amur Region, 23 of Jehovah's Witnesses have faced persecution for their faith. Aleksey Berchuk and Dmitriy Golik are serving long terms in a penal colony; Konstantin Moiseyenko and Vasiliy Reznichenko were given suspended sentences. Another seven men are on trial, defending their right to profess the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. Most of the cases against believers in this region were initiated by FSB Investigator Obukhov.

The June 2022 judgment of the ECHR points out that believers have the right to practice their religion "individually" or "in community with others" and that this right “has always been regarded as an essential part of the freedom of religion.” (§ 268)