Dmitrii Dolzhikov
- Criminal Code
- Article 282.2 part 2, Russian Criminal Code
- Case category
- Extremism casesCases against Jehovah's Witnesses
- Verdict
- Restriction of liberty, Compulsory labour
- Date of verdict
- 2023-06-30
- Region
- Novosibirsk Oblast
- City
- Novosibirsk
Recognition by human rights organisations
- Recognised as a political prisonerby 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
Resident of Chelyabinsk. In 2020, he became one of the defendants in a criminal case for his faith, which was initiated by the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Novosibirsk Region. In May 2020, when he had already moved to another region, his case was separated into a proceeding of its own, which was subsequently repeatedly suspended and resumed. His new place of residence was searched in September 2022. Dolzhikov was interrogated and then taken back to Novosibirsk, where he was placed in a pre-trial detention centre for 2.5 months.
Since November 2022, the believer has been under house arrest. The court began to consider his case in December of the same year. In June 2023, the court sentenced the believer to 3 years of colony and 1 year of restriction of liberty, but the imprisonment was changed to forced labour. In September 2023, the appeal confirmed this decision.
On 1 August 2025, Dolzhikov was denied parole, but on 24 October the appeal court overturned this decision and ordered the believer to be released. He was released on the same day.
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.
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