On Tuesday, May 26, the so-called Supreme Court of the occupied Crimea rejected the appeal of the sentence of defense of political prisoner Sergey Filatov, who was sentenced to 6 years in a penal colony with a 1-year probation for organizing and participating in the Jehovah’s Witnesses cell. This was reported by the Crimea.Realities media agency.
“Unfortunately, the decision (of the so-called Dzhankoy District Court of March) was upheld. The document of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of May 6, which refers to 18 believers in Russia and to which we referred as part of the appeal against the verdict to Serhii Filatov, the court simply ignored it”,- said Oleh Zakharchuk, Sergey Filatov’s lawyer.
We remind that in November 2018 in Dzhankoy FSB officers conducted mass searches of people suspected of participating in the religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses, banned in Russia. The head of the local regional group of Witnesses Syvash, Sergey Filatov, was detained. He is suspected of organizing an extremist community. The Syvash group itself was dismissed back in 2017. On March 5, the so-called Dzhankoy District Court sentenced Sergey Filatov to 6 years in a penal colony with a 1-year probation for organizing and participating in the Jehovah's Witnesses cell.