A woman from Kuzbass has been given a five-year suspended sentence in a case concerning the religious movement “Alla-Ayat.”

The Kiselyovsk City Court in the Kemerovo region has sentenced local resident Lyubov T. to five years’ probation in a case concerning the religious movement “Alla-Ayat.” This was reported by the channel “Kuzbass without Extremism,” which is linked to the security services.

The case against Lyubov T. was filed with the court at the end of December 2022, OVD-Info has found. The verdict was issued on 30 June this year.

The court considered that the defendant had “organised an ‘Ayat Centre’ at her place of residence, where she practised a ‘self-healing’ method.” According to the court’s version, the woman “organised and held meetings” and also “recruited new supporters to extremist activities.”

The court found her guilty under articles relating to participation in the activities of an extremist organisation (Part 2, Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and recruitment (Part 1.1, Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code).

15:54 The SOVA Research Centre specifies that the verdict was delivered to 68-year-old Lyubov Tkacheva.

• The religious teaching and movement “Alla-Ayat” emerged in the early 1990s in Kazakhstan. Its followers advocate alternative medicine and, for treating illness, drink a special tea, recite a “formula of life,” and draw on the energy of the sun, notes SOVA. The “Alla-Ayat” movement has been recognised as extremist in several regions of Russia, for example in Samara region and Altai Krai.
• The European Court of Human Rights, in its judgement “Milshtein v. Russia,” noted that the decision of the Novosibirsk Regional Court recognising “Alla-Ayat” as “extremist” in the region did not comply with the principles guaranteed by the Convention on Human Rights. In addition, the ECHR believed there was no need to ban the movement in the interests of Russian society.