RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Prosecutor tries to block Christensen's release

PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE APPEALS COURT DECISION FOR RELEASE OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESS DENNIS CHRISTENSEN

by Ivan Zhuravkov

7x7 Kursk oblast, 2 July 2020

 

The prosecutor for monitoring correctional institutions of Kursk oblast, Aleksei Shatunov, appealed the court's decision about substituting for the Dane Dennis Christensen a fine of 400,000 rubles for the remaining two years in a penal colony. Earlier colony personnel had placed the believer in a special isolation cell for violators for ten days. This is reported on the Jehovah's Witnesses* website.

 

On 23 June, the Lgov district court of Kursk oblast substituted for Dennis Christensen, who was convicted of arranging the activity of a Jehovah's Witnesses* extremist organization, a fine for the remaining incarceration. His lawyer petitioned for the mitigation of the sentence because in the autumn of 2019, his client suffered critical pneumonia and is in a high-risk group because of the pandemic of the coronavirus. The assistant prosecutor for monitoring correctional facilities of the oblast prosecutor's office, who participated in the trial, Artem Kofanov, supported the mitigation of the punishment. The believer was supposed to be released after the court's decision took effect.

 

But the prosecutor, Aleksei Shatunov, on 26 June requested the quashing of the court's order and sending the material for a new review. In his submission he cited the testimony of the administration of the penal colony where Christensen is serving his sentence, which allegedly characterizes the convict in an unsatisfactory way. The defense intends to file an objection to the prosecutor's appeal.

 

A day earlier, personnel of the Lgov colony composed two reports on Christensen: for being in a dining room at the wrong time and being in the barracks in a tee-shirt without a jacket. The next day he was placed for ten days in an E.P.K.T.—the strictest form of isolation for especially incorrigible violators of prison rules. According to law, this measure is used only for frequent, serious violations by a prisoner and only after a medical examination.

 

The lawyer described how his client and another prisoner were placed in a cell measuring 3.3 by 2.3 meters. The room has poor ventilation and mold, which poses a threat for Christensen's health. The believer described for the lawyer how at the time of the violations of which he is accused, other prisoners were with him in similar circumstances, but only he was placed in the E.P.K.T.  "This leads one to think that there was a planned action that was needed in order to prevent Dennis' being set free by court decision," the defense lawyer said.

 

Dennis Christensen has been in custody for more than three years. Investigators, and then also a court, concluded that the Jehovah's Witness believer conducted illegal religious meetings and worship services in Orel, leading the activity of a forbidden extremist organization of Jehovah's Witnesses.* He was arrested in 2017 at a meeting of believers, and in February 2019 he was sentenced to six years in a penal colony. Christensen himself does not acknowledge guilt, maintaining that he only was exercising his right to freedom of religious confession.

 

The Jehovah's Witnesses* community was ruled to be an extremist organization and banned and liquidated in 2016. In 2017 the Russian Supreme Court ruled the Jehovah's Witnesses* to be an extremist organization and banned all legal entities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. In the court's opinion, the activities of the community preached hatred and enmity toward other religious confessions.

 

*The Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is an extremist organization that is forbidden on Russian territory. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 July 2020)

 


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