In Chelyabinsk, Court Sentenced Yevgeniy Bushev to 7 Years in Prison in Five Hearings

On November 7, 2023, Judge Anton Erofeyev of the Kalininsky District Court of Chelyabinsk found Yevgeniy Bushev, one of Jehovah's Witnesses, guilty of extremism. The court considered peaceful gatherings and conversations on biblical topics to be a crime. There were only five sessions in the hearings.

The case against Bushev was initiated by the investigator of the Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Chepenko, who has at least 12 similar cases in the region. In September 2022, Yevgeniy's house was searched. A year after that, the case went to court, and two months later it reached its final stage. The prosecutor requested 6 years in a general regime colony for Bushev.

According to the investigation, the believer "took deliberate, purposeful actions of an organizational nature aimed at continuing the illegal activities of a banned religious organization." However, Yevgeniy was not a member of any extremist organization, but only practiced his religion, as Jehovah's Witnesses do all over the world. In Russia, this religion is also not banned.

The defense emphasizes that there is not a single evidence of an extremist statement or action on the part of Bushev in the materials of the criminal case. There is a linguistic examination in the case, according to which Yevgeniy "persuaded" an agent of the special services, an employee of the National Guard, who was pretending to be interested in the Bible, to "accept the faith" of Jehovah's Witnesses. According to Bushev, the authors of the examination took his phrases out of context and distorted their meaning. In fact, the believer only discussed biblical questions that interested the man.

Yevgeniy Bushev has been under house arrest since September 2022. Due to criminal prosecution, he lost his job, and his accounts were blocked.

Already 15 of Jehovah's Witnesses from the Chelyabinsk region have been prosecuted on religious grounds.