You're reading: RFE/RL: Two Jehovah’s witnesses sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Russia amid crackdown

RFE/RL: Two Jehovah’s witnesses sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Russia amid crackdown

Published June 30, 2021 at 6:08 pm

People attend the annual Jehovah's Witnesses assembly gathering 30.000 believers on July 22, 2011 in Villepinte, Paris suburb.European rights judges said on June 30, 2011 that France had interfered with the religious freedom of Jehovah's Witnesses in imposing a supplementary tax assessment on gifts by its faithful. The Association of Jehovah's Witnesses claimed that the French government was trying to repress their activities by imposing in 1998 a tax assessment that amounted in total to 45 million euros ($65 million), covering the period from 1993 to 1996. AFP PHOTO / BERTRAND GUAY / AFP PHOTO / BERTRAND GUAY

Photo by AFP

Two members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been handed lengthy prison terms in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk amid an ongoing crackdown on the religious group, which has been banned in Russia since 2017.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ website says 30-year-old Dmitry Golik was sentenced to seven years and 43-year-old Aleksei Berchuk to eight years in prison on June 30.