A Jehovah’s Witness from the Rostov region is in urgent need of surgery. He has not received any letters for six months.

Oleg Shidlovsky, 56, from Gukovo in Rostov region (southern Russia), who was sentenced to six and a half years in a penal colony on charges of organising extremist activity (Part 1, Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), is in urgent need of eye surgery. The project “Jehovah’s Witnesses. Legal situation in Russia” reports this.

According to the project, Shidlovsky’s eyesight is continuing to deteriorate in Correctional Colony No. 3 in Dimitrovgrad (Ulyanovsk region, about 900 km southeast of Moscow). An ophthalmologist told him that under the conditions of his detention, it is impossible to perform the necessary surgery. However, the believer is receiving medication on a regular basis.

Oleg Shidlovsky has also not received any letters for six months. Because he does not have a personal copy of the Bible, he is forced to read the book in the colony library.

Residents of Gukovo, Alexey Gorely, Oleg Shidlovsky, Nikita Moiseyev, Alexey Dyadkin, Vladimir Popov and Evgeny Razumov, were detained in August 2020 after a series of raids on the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The men were then put in pre-trial detention.

All the believers were accused of organising the activities of an extremist organisation. According to the investigators, they “gathered fellow believers for meetings, prayed and sang songs to Jehovah God.”

The prosecution’s case was based on the testimony of two anonymous witnesses, one of whom was a former fellow believer of the accused. In addition, even before the men were detained, an FSB officer “gained access to the believers’ phone calls and video calls.”

In September 2022, Gukovo City Court in Rostov region sentenced Gorely and Shidlovsky to six and a half years in a general regime colony, while Moiseyev, Dyadkin, Popov and Razumov received seven years each. In January 2023, the court upheld the sentence on appeal. In the cassation court, this was also left unchanged.

At the trial of first instance, the prosecutor requested eight years in prison for each of the believers.