Another verdict for practicing faith: a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence for the 23-year-old Rostov-on-Don-based Semyon Baybak

A conscientious objector, whose faith does not allow him to take up arms, was convicted under "extremist" articles 282.2 and 282.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Vladimir Barvin, a Leninskiy District Court judge, issued the verdict on December 21, 2020. Several days earlier, the same court handed down a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence to another Jehovah's Witness, Ruslan Alyyev.

Semyon Baybak was sentenced to 3.5 years suspended imprisonment with a probation period of 4.5 years, 1-year restriction of freedom, namely: it is forbidden to leave home from 22:00 to 6:00, it is forbidden to visit institutions where alcoholic drinks are sold, it is forbidden to leave Rostov-on-Don, change the place of residence and work, it is ordered to come twice a month to a supervisory body for registration. The believer was immediately released from the measure of restraint in the form of house arrest.

Another 14 law-abiding residents of Rostov-on-Don are currently prosecuted under a similar scheme. The investigation interprets the unprohibited observance of religious rules — reading the Bible, praying, singing, and Biblical conversations — as participation in the activities of an organization banned by a court in Moscow in 2017.

On December 18, 2020, addressing the court with his last word, Semyon Baibak said: "I am not the first Jehovah's Witness in this court and, unfortunately, not the last. My other co-religionists will be here for some time yet... Jehovah's Witnesses in general, as a religion, are absolutely alien to extremism in all its manifestations. Let me give you an example from history. Bergen-Belsen, Bohr, Buchenwald, Wevelsburg, Gros Rosen, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Lichtenburg, Majdanek, Mauthausen, Mittelbau-Dora, Niederhagen, Neuengamm, Oswiecim, Ravensbrück, Stutthof, Esterwegen... These are all names of Nazi concentration camps. The Jehovah's Witnesses, a group of people marked with a purple triangle patch on their uniforms, were held . . . in each of them. Sent to these terrible places for their religious beliefs, for refusing to say "Heil Hitler!" and for refusing to participate in that war. So why did they refuse? The Bible calls, "As far as possible on your part, be at peace with all men." For Jehovah's Witnesses, these are not just words. It is a directive from God that we honor sacredly."

Semyon Baibak did not admit his guilt of participating in an extremist organization. He considers his criminal case to be nothing but religious persecution. At the same time, he told the court: "I don't feel depressed or hate that such things touched me as well. But I intend to prove my innocence to the very end. I would like to end with a passage from the Bible that I like very much: "We are constrained in every way, but not driven into a corner; we are confused, but our situation is not hopeless; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; subverted, but not destroyed.