GOVERNMENT OF DENMARK AS THIRD PARTY IN CASE "CHRISTENSEN VS. RUSSIA" IN EUROPEAN COURT
Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 29 May 2018
On 15 May 2018, the Kingdom of Denmark sent to the European Court of Human Rights (E.C.H.R.) a declaration regarding entrance into the case "Christensen vs. Russia" in the capacity of a third party.
An appeal was filed in the E.C.H.R. in June 2017, after Russian courts made a baseless decision regarding the pretrial detention of Dennis Christensen, a Danish subject, who was arrested in the city of Orel, merely for the fact that he professes the religion of the Jehovah's Witnesses. (Russian law enforcement personnel mistakenly take the joint religious confession of citizens for membership in an extremist organization.) The appeal was accompanied by a written petition of Christensen himself regarding consideration of the case as top priority. On 4 September 2017, the E.C.H.R. ruled the appeal to be acceptable and sent to the government of Russia questions regarding circumstances of the case.
It all began a year ago, on 26 May 2017, when Svetlana Naumova, a judge of the Soviet district court of the city of Orel, without necessary grounds, ruled to choose for Dennis Christensen a measure for assuring appearance of detention in custody, thereby trampling upon Christensen's critical constitutional and basic human right—the right to liberty and personal inviolability, which is of secondary importance to only the right to life. Four weeks later, on 21 June 2017, the Orel oblast court left the ruling of the lower court in force.
As of the time of publication of this article, Dennis Christensen has been in custody in an Orel SIZO for a whole year already. (tr. by PDS, posted 29 May 2018)
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