APPEALS COURT IN BASHKIRIA MOVES BELIEVER TO HOUSE ARREST
Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 31 October 2018
On 31 October 2018, the Supreme Court of the republic of Bashkortostan mitigated the measure of restraint for 31-year-old Anton Lemeshev from the city of Diurtiuli (Bashkiria). He was transferred to house arrest after 14 days spent in the SIZO No 5 for the republic of Bashkortostan. In placing Anton Lemeshev under house arrest, the court forbade him correspondence and telephone conversations and also communication with people who are being involved in his criminal case as witnesses or suspects.
Anton Lemeshev was arrested on 18 October 2018. On that day, at least eleven searches were conducted in homes of citizens who are suspected of professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. The case, based on part 1 of article 282.2 of the CC of the RF, was opened by the Diurtiuli department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (SKR) on 20 September 2018. The investigator R. Farrakhov based his order for opening the case thus: "An unidentified person . . . who reliably knew that the religious organization . . . had been ruled to be extremist . . . intentionally planned the activity of the local religious organization in the city of Diurtiuli." It is not known how the investigator established that the "unidentified person" acted "intentionally" and that this person was not simply exercising his constitutional right to freedom of religious confession and that he "planned the activity of the local religious organization."
This is not the first such case in Bashkiria. In April 2018, 32-year-old Anatoly Vilitkevich was arrested. He spent 71 days in an Ufa SIZO and then was transferred to house arrest. His arrest also was a direct consequence of the decision of the Russian Supreme Court of 20 April 2017, by which a prohibition was placed on the activity of all registered legal entities of Jehovah's Witnesses, including the association in Ufa. The decision of the Supreme Court was appealed in the European Court of Human Rights on a priority basis. Meanwhile, dozens of rights advocates and also the Council on Human Rights under the president of the RF have expressed concern about the growing religious repressions. (tr. by PDS, posted 31 October 2018)
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