Five Sakhalin-Based Believers Received Suspended Sentences Ranging From Two to Six-and-a-Half Years for Reading the Bible

On January 31, 2022 Judge Nikita Kucherov of the Nevelsk City Court of Sakhalin Region found local Jehovah's Witnesses guilty of participating in the activities of an extremist organization or in its organization. Sergey Kulakov and Yevgeniy Yelin were sentenced to 6.5 years of suspended imprisonment based on the more grave part of the article.

Tatyana Kulakova (wife of Sergey Kulakov), Vyacheslav Ivanov and Aleksandr Kozlitin were sentenced to 2 years of suspended sentence on the milder part of the article. The verdict has not come into force and can be appealed. The believers insisted on their complete innocence. There were no victims of the believers' actions in the criminal case.

The court fully satisfied the request of the prosecutor's office to give Yelin and Kulakov a suspended sentence of 6.5 years. However, the prosecutor's office asked for a more severe punishment: Ivanov 5 years, Kozlitin 4 years and Kulakova 3.5 years of suspended imprisonment.

The case for the faith against Sergey Kulakov was initiated on December 24, 2018. Within a month there were at least 11 searches in the homes of believers in Sakhalin. This was the first raid on Jehovah's Witnesses after President Vladimir Putin expressed bewilderment at the persecution of believers of this religion and promised to deal with it. From April 2019 to March 2020, the Sakhalin Region FSB opened criminal cases against Aleksandr Kozlitin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Yevgeniy Yelin, and Tatyana Kulakova one after another. All cases were later merged into one case. Throughout the investigation, the believers were under house arrest. On December 10, 2020 the case went to court.

Due to illness, 60-year-old Sergey Kulakov has difficulty walking without a cane. In October 2019, he was included in the federal list of extremists Rosfinmonitoring, due to which the believer can no longer use a bank card. Sergey Kulakov shared, "When it all started, the fellow believers repeatedly provided us with assistance, helped with food products."

Tatyana Kulakova is visually impaired and has difficulty reading a lot, which she had to do throughout the trial. The searches affected her health, in addition, Tatyana was hospitalized with a Covid.

Vyacheslav Ivanov shared that he and his wife were helped to cope with all the events - they were sincerely interested in their friends and cared for them not only morally, but also financially.

Despite their peaceful activities, hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia have already been subjected to repression, although Russian authorities have repeatedly stated that believers can continue to practice their religion freely. The world community and human rights organizations express strong concerns about systematic violations of the freedoms and rights of religious minorities, in particular Jehovah's Witnesses.