A Jehovah’s Witness detained in Russia since last August is expected to learn his fate within the week.
Valeriy Moskalenko, 52, was arrested during a morning raid by riot police and state security services who also targeted the homes of three other Jehovah’s Witnesses in Khabarovsk, a city of about 600,000 people near the China border in southeast Russia.
Agents searched his home for five hours before arresting him. Moskalenko, who was caring for his elderly mother, was accused of “organizing the activity of an extremist organization.”
Moskalenko’s detention is part of a broader targeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. In April 2017, Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned as an alleged “extremist organization,” supposedly because they discourage blood transfusions. The state has seized around $90 million in church property.
A spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses condemned Moskalenko’s arrest as a violation of international law.
“The arrest and detention of a peaceful believer like Valeriy goes against Russia’s constitution and violates international law. Valeriy and the 247 other Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia facing criminal charges for their faith are further evidence of the resurgence of Soviet-style repression in Russia, and a blatant disregard for the international outcry that followed Dennis Christensen’s sentencing,” Jarrod Lopes told the Washington Examiner. Lopes was referring to Danish citizen Dennis Christensen, who was arrested at a 2017 meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and sentenced this year to six years in prison.
Like Moskalenko, Christensen was charged with organizing extremist activity and faces up to six years in prison.
“Whether or not Valeriy is sentenced to prison, if he is convicted, we will consider it a crime — a crime of religious persecution. In the face of such persecution, though, we know our fellow believers in Russia will not have their faith shaken. They will continue to remain resolute, as they have been since the 2017 ban,” Lopes said.
As of this month, almost 250 Jehovah’s Witnesses were facing criminal charges: 39 were in detention, 24 were under house arrest, and more than 100 were facing restrictions.
Since 2017, more than 600 homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been raided by Russian authorities. In 2019, raids have occurred at an average 47.2 per month, a more than 100% increase from 2018.
