Pavel Stegachev

On 17 January 2011 in Tambov, local resident Pavel Stegachev, a follower of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organisation, was charged in a criminal case under part 1 of article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (incitement to hatred or enmity). The prosecutor refused to approve the indictment. Prior to that, in March 2010, searches were conducted in the homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Tambov as part of the case. The searches took place in the flats of three families. The basis for the search was a ruling of the Leninsky District Court of Tambov, which stated: "There may be items, literature, electronic media propagandising religious hatred, as well as other documents recording the activities of a religious organisation".

On 8 April 2011, the Regional Unit of the Investigative Committee for the Tambov Region denied Pavel Stegachev's request to disqualify an expert to conduct a religious expert examination.

The petition stated that the Centre for Religious Studies of Tambov State University (TSU) "cannot be considered an expert institution due to the fact that it carries out close cooperation and joint activities with the Tambov diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, a priest of this religious organisation is represented on its organising committee, and the diocesan office is the sponsor of the project "Totalitarian Sects: Regional Aspect of Research" implemented by the TSU centre.

The Investigative Committee for the Tambov region found no grounds for disqualification of both the expert organisation and the expert representing it - candidate of philosophical sciences, associate professor Tatyana Pronina. The investigation in its ruling refers to the fact that Pronina is an approved expert at the regional department of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for conducting state religious expertise. However, the document does not state that the competence of this body is limited to the expert examination of certain groups of believers who claim to have the status of a legal entity.

The investigators also found no evidence of Pronina's interest in the outcome of the criminal case, while the accused and his lawyer pointed out that Pronina's assessment of Jehovah's Witnesses' publications is a judgement of a believer based on an unscientific premise.

On the contrary, the Tambov Investigative Committee called the defendant's application for disqualification of experts "a way of evasion with the aim of clearly delaying the investigation".