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