Court in Kostroma Found Valentina Samus, 74, Guilty of “Organizing the Activity of an Extremist Organization”. The Pensioner Received a 6-year Suspended Sentence for Her Faith

On December 19, 2023, the court in Kostroma gave Valentina Samus a 6-year suspended sentence for talking about the Bible. Judge Maria Zaikina classified the pensioner as a criminal for "helping people to learn about Bible teachings, principles and norms." The believer considers the verdict unjust.

The criminal case against Valentina Samus was initiated in February 2022 by the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Kostroma Region, and in December a recognizance agreement was imposed on her as a preventive measure. Valentina said what supported her all that time: "I received many warm wishes, and some fellow believers even dare to come to the hearing. Face-to-face conversations are very encouraging for us. The videos and postcards with Bible verses are very moving."

The prosecutor requested that the elderly woman be sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony, without presenting a single fact proving that the defendant had harmed anyone. Witnesses for the prosecution described Samus as a pleasant person to talk to. According to them, Valentina did not express calls for violence, the overthrow of the constitutional order or disrespect toward the state authorities.

In her final statement, Valentina said: "I am an elderly person, a health worker and far removed from jurisprudence. But in the course of this trial, I realized that I was being prosecuted not for committing a crime, but for my religious beliefs, for my peaceful and law-abiding way of life, for my sincere desire to selflessly help other people by telling them about what I myself learned from the Bible."

"All my life I have respected members of different religions, nationalities, age groups and professions. Whenever, I attended calls, my main goal was to provide the person with emergency medical care to save his life, and for him to recover as quickly as possible. Therefore, I have never shown hatred, enmity or violence to anyone. And the Bible taught me even more -- to respect a person's right to choose and his dignity," Valentina said in court.

The text of the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention drew attention to the fact that "the actions of the state [of the Russian Federation] were motivated by a discriminatory goal: to stop the religious practice of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. [...] [Such treatment] violates "the State's duty of neutrality and impartiality" regarding religious beliefs and practices" (para. 47).