In Orenburg, Five of Jehovah's Witnesses Received Suspended Sentences of 2.5 to 3.5 Years for Meetings With Fellow Believers

On August 28, 2023, Diana Sudorgina, judge of the Promyshlenniy District Court of Orenburg, found five Jehovah's Witnesses guilty of participating in the activity of an extremist organization and gave them suspended sentences from 2.5 to 3.5 years. The prosecutor had requested for them the same lenghts of terms, but in a penal colony. The believers deny being guilty of extremism.

Sergey Logunov, 60, was given a 2.5-year suspended sentence with restriction of freedom for 8 months and a 2-year probation period. The court gave 30-year-old Vladislav Kolbanov a 3.5-year suspended sentence with restriction of freedom for 10 months and a 3-year probation period. Vladimir Kochnev, 42, was given a suspended sentence of 2 years and 8 months with restriction of freedom for 10 months and a 2-year and 2-month probation period. The judge gave 42-year-old Pavel Lekontsev a 3-year suspended sentence with restriction of freedom for 10 months and a 2.5-year probation period. Nikolay Zhugin, 47,  was given a 2.5-year suspended sentence with restriction of freedom for 8 months and a 2-year probation period. The judge placed all of the believers under a recognizance agreement.

On May 14, 2018, the Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case, interpreting friendly meetings of believers in a café as continuing the activity of a banned religious organization. After mass searches in the Orenburg Region, law enforcement officers sent Kolbanov and Kochnev to a temporary detention facility; the others were placed under recognizance agreements. Soon Kochnev ended up in a pretrial detention center, and Kolbanov was placed under house arrest. Kochnev spent about 3 months behind bars. After 1.5 years of investigation, the charges against the believers were reclassified to less serious ones.

In December 2019, the case was submitted to the Promyshlenniy District Court, but Judge Tatyana Gorbacheva did not find in the case any specific accusations against the believers, nor motives or objectives of the "crime". Therefore, the case was returned to the prosecutor's office and only more than a year later it was again submitted to the same court for consideration by Judge Igor Izmailov. The defense filed a motion to recuse him, and a new judge, Diana Sudorgina, entered the case. During the court hearings, forgery in the texts of transcripts and errors in expert studies were exposed.

The prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Orenburg on the basis of religion is in its sixth year. International organizations, human rights activists, as well as the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights have repeatedly expressed concern about repression for faith in Russia.