Aleksandr and Svetlana Seredkin in front of the courthouse, Novosibirsk, 2022
The Court of Cassation Did Not Change the Sentence of a 69-Year-Old Jehovah's Witness From Novosibirsk – 6 Years in a Penal Colony for His Faith
Novosibirsk RegionOn May 29, 2024, a panel judges of the Eighth Court of Cassation in Kemerovo upheld the verdict against Aleksandr Seredkin. The believer continues to serve his sentence in the penal colony.
Aleksandr attended the hearing via video conferencing. In the cassation appeal, the defendant's lawyer pointed out that in the case there was no evidence of the believer's guilt: " The appealed judicial acts do not indicate any signs of extremism in the actions of Aleksandr Seredkin: not in deeds, not in words. How exactly a peaceful conversation about God with fellow believers jeopardized the constitutional order and security of the state is not specified in the appealed judicial acts".
"On the contrary, all the actions and statements of my client," the lawyer continued, "were exclusively peaceful in nature and did not indicate the presence of hatred or enmity. He was driven not by extremist motives, but his intention to exercise the right to practice his faith in the ways common to Jehovah's Witnesses."
Seredkin has been in the penal colony for almost a year. Apart from him, three other Jehovah's Witnesses in the Novosibirsk Region received prison sentences for their faith.