New Wave of Searches of Homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and the Moscow Region

On December 5, 2024, at least eight homes of Jehovah's Witnesses were searched in Moscow and Lyubertsy near Moscow. In one of the cases, the law enforcement officers used force. Five believers — Zaur Murtuzov, Daria Petrochenko, Liliana Korol, Larisa Kislaya, and Oksana Ivanova — were sent to a temporary detention facility. A criminal case has been initiated.

In the early morning, officers of the Investigative Committee and the FSB, accompanied by the National Guard and SOBR, broke into the houses of believers, after waking them up with loud knocks on the door. In some apartments, law enforcement officers (numbering from five to eight people, some of them wearing masks and with weapons) broke down the doors using crowbars and sledgehammers. According to one of the believers, in her case the testifying witnesses turned out to be police.

According to eyewitnesses, the officers demanded they unlock phones and laptops, provide access to correspondence, threatening them with criminal prosecution and detention. The officers beat one believer on the head and stomach and broke his nose. During the searches, passports for travel abroad,electronic devices, flash drives, hard drives, notebooks, cards, photographs, Bibles, religious books and a Bible atlas were seized. The searches lasted from 2 to 5 hours.

Five believers were taken to the Investigative Department for the Southern Administrative District of Moscow, interrogated, and later placed in a temporary detention facility. On the same day, Senior Lieutenant of Justice Y. S. Shumilova,investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the city of Moscow, charged Zaur Murtuzov with participating in the activity of an extremist organization and involving others in it. This is how the investigation interprets conversations on Bible topics with a woman (Olga Grigoryeva), who for two years pretended to be interested in the Holy Scriptures.

To date, 19 Jehovah's Witnesses have been convicted for their faith in Moscow and the Moscow Region, 7 of them are serving time in penal colonies.