FOUR
JEHOVAH'S
WITNESSES ARRESTED AFTER SERIES OF SEARCHES IN ROSTOV OBLAST
Kavkazskii
Uzel, 9
August 2020
Believers
Aleksei
Gorely, Evgeny Pazumov, Nikita Moiseev, and Oleg Shidlovsky were
placed in
detention until 6 October. This decision was made today [Sunday]
by a Rostov
court. All four were arrested yesterday during a series of
searches in homes of
Jehovah's Witnesses.
The
court did not
heed the arguments of lawyers who asked for house arrest for
the believers
Today
Judge Vladimir
Strokov of the Lenin district court of Rostov-on-Don considered
the petition of
an investigator for three and a half hours regarding detention
of the four
Jehovah's Witnesses, who were arrested on 8 August. More than 10
persons arrived
to support the believers; however only the closest relatives
were allowed into
the courtroom, a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondents reports, who was
at the
courthouse but was not admitted into the courtroom.
The
first escort
guard conducted the 40-year-old bookkeeper Aleksei Gorely into
the courtroom,
and the second, the 40-year-old driller Evgeny Razumov, and then
in separate
sessions the court selected a measure of restraint for the
30-year-old carpenter
and household appliance repairman Nikita Moiseev and the
60-year-old physical
education teacher of a boarding school Oleg Shidlovsky. Moiseev
lives in
Kamensk-Shakhtinsk, Gorely lives in Rostov-on-Don, and the
others, in Gukovo.
The
investigator
explained in court that on 7 August a case was opened based on
part 1 of
article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code—"arranging the
activity of an
extremist organization." Despite the fact that the suspects did
not
acknowledge their guilt, the investigator insisted that if left
at liberty they
might hide from the investigation and the court, put pressure on
witnesses, and
conspire with other participants to destroy evidence. A
representative of the
prosecutor's office also considered the detention of all four to
be
appropriate, lawyers of the suspects told the Kavkazskii Uzel
correspondent.
The
defense cited the
fact that all suspects have a permanent place of residence and
live with
families, and they asked for giving their clients house arrest.
Oleg Shidlovsky
has a wife who has a second-class disability and is dependent
upon him. The
lawyers maintain that the only evidence in the case are reports
of a secret
witness. But the investigator and representative of the
prosecutor's office did
not support the request of the suspects' lawyers for house
arrest.
In the
end, the court
selected for all four defendants a measure of restraint in the
form of
detention in custody until 6 October. All lawyers of the
defendants intend to
appeal the court's decision.
Security
agents
conducted 14 searches in homes of Jehovah's Witnesses
People
who came to
the courthouse to support the believers told a Kavkazskii Uzel
correspondent
that on 8 August, no fewer than 14 searches were conducted in
homes of
Jehovah's Witnesses in Rostov oblast, including in Gukovo,
Kamensk-Shakhtinsk,
and Rostov-on-Don.
"I was
at home
when they came to our house for my husband. I personally opened
the door when
they knocked. They knocked somewhere around 18.45 (Kavkazskii
Uzel determined it
was 11.50 Moscow time on 10 August 2020). I immediately realized
that it wasn't
the neighbor from the force of the knock, and I went to open the
door, since I
know of cases where if there is no quick answer nothing is left
at the door.
The investigator came in, along with witnesses and three OMON
troops. They
immediately showed the warrant; my husband read it and then they
began
conducting the search. They began in the kitchen, and then the
bath and toilet,
the hall and bedroom. They examined gradually, opening closets
and taking out
things. Our child was sleeping; he will be just seven years old.
Perhaps they
took this into account and therefore the search was conducted
rather properly.
Things were taken out but nothing was strewn about," Aleksei
Gorely's
wife, Inna Gorelaia, described the search that occurred on 8
August.
According
to the
woman, the security personnel took from her husband his work
notebook, smart
phone, old-fashioned phone, hard disks with photographs, and a
flash drive.
"My telephone and the child's tablet were left. We gave them the
password
and the investigator flipped through it and did not confiscate
it. As to
religious things, there was only the Bible in the synodal
translation. We told
them about this right away and they responded that it wasn't
needed. They took
my husband's notebook with notes. Before the prohibition [by the
Supreme Court
in 2017—tr.] we had congresses. They found several notebooks
from those years
and they confiscated them, too. They also found a handwritten
text with a
letter from an acquaintance. That's what I saw. I was in another
room with the
child," the believer explained.
The
woman said the
search ended at 21.10 (9:10 p.m., Kavkazskii Uzel's
clarification, 11.50 Moscow
time on 10 August 2020). "My husband left with them in a vehicle
and the
investigator stayed with me. He did not put pressure on me. He
conversed
calmly. I answered that we could use article 51 of the
constitution (about the
fact that nobody is required to give testimony against himself
and near
relatives—Kavkazskii Uzel note). An affidavit of the seizures
was drawn up and
they let me photograph it, but the affidavit about the search,
they said, could
not be photographed. My husband managed to tell me that they
were being fed in
the holding cell, but the water was bad. I delivered things to
the temporary holding
cell and he managed to tell me that they delivered everything to
him,"
Inna Gorelaia told the Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.
As of 9
August 2020,
the number of Jehovah's Witnesses who have been criminally
prosecuted in Rostov
oblast had reached 13, seven of whom are in custody and two are
in house
arrest, Kavkazskii Uzel calculated. (tr. by PDS, posted 10
August 2020)
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