Case of believer from Cherkessk sent for reconsideration

A court in Pyatigorsk has overturned the verdict to Elena Menchikova, a resident of the city of Cherkessk, who was sentenced to five years of conditional imprisonment on charges of participation in an extremist organization, and sent the case for a new trial at the first-instance court.

In December 2021, a court in Cherkessk found Elena Menchikova, who professes the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses*, to be a member of an organization banned in Russia and sentenced her to five years of probation (conditional imprisonment).

On April 20, 2017, the Russian Supreme Court (SC) banned the religious communities of Jehovah's Witnesses* in the country as extremist. The "Administrative Centre of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia"* and all its branches were included into the list of banned organizations.

In her complaint, Elena Menchikova, a 58-year-old Category II disabled person, stated that she treated the decisions made earlier as unjust. "I was unreasonably found guilty, in particular, for talking to other people on religious topics, praying and singing religious songs … The verdict is an act of direct and indirect religious discrimination," her posted complaint says.