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On 10 July, the Sakhalin Regional Court overturned the suspended sentences handed to local Jehovah’s Witnesses Larisa Potapova and Olga Kalinnikova. This was reported by the website “Jehovah’s Witnesses. Legal situation in Russia.”
Their case has been sent back to the court of first instance for a new review.
The appellate court overturned the decision of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Court, delivered on 24 March, sentencing the believers to two and a half years in prison and eight months of restricted liberty. Potapova and Kalinnikova had been found guilty at the time under the article on participation in the activities of an extremist organisation (Part 2, Article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code).
At the same time, the prosecution also charged them under the article on involving others in the activities of an extremist organisation (Part 1.1, Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), but the court of first instance acquitted them on this count. The prosecutor had requested suspended sentences of five and a half years each.
Both the prosecution and the believers filed appeals against the verdict. It is not known whose appeal led to the convictions being overturned.
The case against Potapova and Kalinnikova was initiated in October 2023, and both were placed under travel restrictions. Initially, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were only charged with participation in an extremist organisation, but a month later, searches took place at their homes in Kurilsk and the village of Reidovo, during which security forces seized electronic devices, flash drives, books, personal notes, international passports and photographs.
In spring 2024, the believers were handed a new charge due to conversations with an elderly woman they knew about religious topics. It became known that the authorities had conducted covert video surveillance in the woman’s home.
According to the prosecution: “The active actions of Potapova and Kalinnikova consisted, among other things, in holding discussions, teaching religion and providing religious upbringing to residents of Kurilsky District… persuading them… to participate in the activities of an extremist organisation while taking precautions to remain clandestine.”
“The essence of my actions—and I did not deny that I am a Jehovah’s Witness—was that I spoke with my acquaintance about the Bible. During these conversations, I did not justify violence or the overthrow of the constitutional order, nor did I encourage my friend to show disrespect for state authority,” Kalinnikova told the appellate court.
Both Kalinnikova and Potapova are from the town of Kurilsk, located on Iturup Island in Russia’s Far East. During the substantive hearing of their criminal case, two judges of the Kurilsk District Court recused themselves. As a result, their case was heard in the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Court, which meant the defendants had to travel 450 kilometres from home as the court refused to conduct hearings via video link.