Asatryan Lyubov

Name: Asatryan Lyubov Ivanovna
Date of Birth: January 11, 1951
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (2)
Current restrictions: suspended sentence
Sentence: punishment in the form of 3 years of imprisonment, with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to participation in the work of public religious organizations and associations for a term of 3 years, with restriction of liberty for a term of 10 months, a sentence of imprisonment shall be considered suspended with a probationary period of 2 years

Biography

On March 20, 2019, searches and interrogations of citizens in connection with their Christian beliefs resumed in Magadan. Lyubov Asatryan became a new defendant in a criminal case against believers in Magadan, who by this time had already become 13. The investigation believes that she participated in worship services. What do we know about Lyubov?

Lyubov was born in 1951 in Kirovabad (Azerbaijan), which is now called Ganja. She is the youngest of six children of her parents (five sisters and one brother). Since childhood, Lyubov loved to read, knitted and sewed. After school, she graduated with honors from a vocational technical school and became a laboratory chemist. In 1973 she moved to Krasnodar (Russia), where she got a job as an optician at a pharmaceutical factory. Later she lived in several cities of the Far East, including Magadan.

Since childhood, Lyubov was worried about the fact that she saw a lot of violence around her, and she was very happy to learn from the Bible that God intends to put an end to all violence and cruelty. This made her want to harmonize her life with the commandments of the Holy Book. This happened back in 1991.

Lyubov still loves to read a lot, chat with friends, pick berries and cones in the forest. She was married and had no children.

Neighbors and acquaintances who do not share Lyubov's religious beliefs are completely perplexed by her criminal prosecution, while Christian friends pray fervently for her.

Case History

After a series of searches in Magadan in May 2018, Konstantin Petrov, Yevgeniy Zyablov and Sergey Yerkin were placed in a pretrial detention center. On the same day in Khabarovsk, the home of Ivan Puyda was searched. He was arrested and taken 1,600 km to a pretrial detention center in Magadan. The believers spent 2 to 4 months behind bars, and then ended up under house arrest. In March 2019, the FSB conducted another series of searches. The number of defendants in the case has reached 13, including 6 women and elderly. The investigator deemed holding peaceful meetings for worship as organizing, participating in and financing the activity of an extremist organization. In almost 4 years of investigation, the case materials against the 13 believers has grown to 66 volumes. The case went to court in March 2022. At the hearings, it became clear that the case was based on the testimony of a secret witness – an FSB informant who made covert recordings of peaceful meetings for worship. In March 2024, the believers were given suspended sentences ranging from 3 to 7 years, and the court of appeal later upheld this verdict.
Timeline
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