Elena Chernykh
- Criminal Code
- Article 282.2 part 2, Russian Criminal Code
- Case category
- Extremism casesCases against Jehovah's Witnesses
- Verdict
- Suspended prison sentence, Restriction of liberty
- Sentence
- 3 years
- Date of verdict
- 2024-04-12
- Region
- Kemerovo Oblast
- City
- Prokopyevsk
Recognition by human rights organisations
- Recognised as persecuted for exercising freedom of religionby Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners
This is the assessment of the organisation named above, not ours. FACTUM reports it with attribution and does not make its own.
Case summary
In 2020, as part of the case against Andrei Vlasov, the homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Prokopyevsk were searched, including the spouses Yuri and Elena Chernykh, parents of a minor son. In May 2023, another criminal case was opened in Prokopyevsk against unidentified persons. Three months later, a Kemerovo Region local police department investigator brought in Yelena Chernykh and pensioner Vera Semicheva as defendants for conducting "joint worship...based on the Holy Scriptures (Bible)." Both women signed a recognizance not to leave. The case went to trial in September 2023. On 12 April 2024, Chernykh was sentenced to three years' conditional sentence.
Others charged under Article 282.2 part 2, Russian Criminal Code
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Source: this person’s record in the OVD-Info political persecution database
Published under CC BY 3.0. The criteria for treating a person as politically persecuted belong to OVD-Info; FACTUM relays their assessment and makes none of its own.
OVD-Info has been designated an «extremist» organisation in Russia — by decision of the Russian authorities, like other independent human rights and media projects.