(Reuters) – A court in Russia’s far east on Wednesday sentenced five Jehovah’s Witnesses to more than six years in prison, just two days after four other believers were also sent to jail, the religious group said.
The five received terms of between six years and three months to six and a half years in the city of Blagoveshchensk, it said in a statement, noting the FSB security service had begin probing the local chapter in 2017.
The sentences are the latest step in a crackdown on a group that Russia has banned. A court in Birobidzhan, some 500 km (310 miles) further to the east, on Monday sentenced four members to terms of between three-and-a-half and seven years.
“Fueled by the FSB’s erroneous claims of extremist activity, local authorities in Russia continue to ratchet up the prison sentences for Jehovah’s Witnesses,” said spokesman Jarrod Lopes.
The group said the five had been accused of undermining Russia’s constitutional foundations and security of the state
Russia’s supreme court in 2017 banned the group under a law criminalising organisations designated “extremist”. Since that ruling, raids on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ homes and meeting places have become a regular occurrence.
Lopes said Russia had sentenced over 40 Jehovah’s Witnesses to prison in 2022 and in total there were nearly 120 members of the group in jail there.
The U.S.-headquartered Jehovah’s Witnesses have been under pressure for years in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin. Orthodox scholars have cast them as a dangerous foreign sect that erodes state institutions and traditional values, allegations they reject.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell)
