Forced Labor for Faith in Jehovah God. An Appeal in Oryol Upheld the Verdict Against Dmitriy Ignatov

On October 10, 2024, the Oryol Regional Court denied the appeal of Jehovah's Witness against the verdict of the court of first instance. Dmitriy Ignatov, 27, will serve a sentence for reading the Bible at a church service—two years of forced labor.

The believer considers the accusation of participation in the activities of an extremist organization to be groundless. Addressing the panel of judges, he said: "Unfortunately, there is a picture that law enforcement officers deliberately distort the laws and, as a result, attribute to me something that I did not actually do." He added: "If you pay attention to the accusation that has been leveled against me, it is basically like a Christmas ball: shiny on the outside, but empty on the inside. There are a lot of scary words in it, but there is no concrete evidence."

In his appeal, Ignatov pointed out that the verdict did not provide evidence of an unlawful motive and intent: "The court did not answer the question: what public danger should I have been aware of, praying to God together, reading the Bible, discussing various socially useful topics, for example, gratitude?"

The sentence to Ignatov that has entered into force is already the fifth in the Oryol region since 2017. During this time, eight Jehovah's Witnesses were prosecuted, four of them were sentenced to long terms in a penal colony.