Rustam Diarov
- Criminal Code
- Article 282.2 part 1, Russian Criminal CodeArticle 282.3 (part unknown), Russian Criminal Code
- Case category
- Extremism casesCases against Jehovah's Witnesses
- Verdict
- Imprisonment (general regime), Restriction of liberty
- Sentence
- 8 years
- Date of verdict
- 2021-10-24
- Region
- Astrakhan Oblast
- City
- Astrakhan
Recognition by human rights organisations
- Recognised as a political prisonerby Memorial Human Rights Centre, 26 October 2021
This is the assessment of the organisation named above, not ours. FACTUM reports it with attribution and does not make its own.
Case summary
He was detained after a search on 9 June 2020 and taken into custody by court order on 11 June. He was charged with organising the activities of an extremist organisation in connection with his involvement in the Jehovah’s Witnesses community. Members of this community are prosecuted under extremist articles solely for religious activities: meetings, joint worship services and attracting new supporters. Later, Diarov was also charged with financing extremist activities.
On 25 October 2021, he was sentenced to eight years in a general regime colony. On 22 December 2022, the cassation court expanded the sentence with a ban on travelling outside Astrakhan.
In 2025, he was deprived of Russian citizenship (acquired in 2007) at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
On 17 February 2026, the court gave Diarov early release from punishment, and on the night of 18 February he was deported from Russia to Uzbekistan.
Others charged under Article 282.2 part 1, 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.