Jehovah’s Witness Pavel Kazadaev is free

Pavel, a 29-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, walked out of a penal colony in Rubtsovsk, Altai Krai, on 14 August, after three years behind bars for the ‘crime’ of discussing the Bible with friends.

He was arrested in the courtroom in August 2023, when an appeal court overturned his suspended sentence and sent him to prison instead. Pavel remembers the day he was taken into custody:

‘They didn’t let me take anything with me. I was taken away just as I was, in my suit, jacket and tie. On the way to the remand prison, we picked up defendants from various courts along the route. People saw I had nothing with me. One gave me a towel, another a spoon, a mug, a container. By the time I reached the remand prison, I already had everything I needed: something to eat with and something to keep warm at night.’

Throughout his time in the colony, he was held under strict conditions, first in a punishment cell, later in a stricter cellular unit, with the periods repeatedly extended.

Visits with his wife, Darya, were few and far between: seven months went by before they were first allowed to see each other, and after that, just once every two months. What kept them going was writing. As Darya recalls:

‘We wrote to each other every day, no matter what was happening.’

Hundreds of letters of support reached Pavel from all over the world. He got through it by holding onto a routine: reading the Bible twice a day, answering his letters, and praying for the people who wrote to him.

A year before his release, he made Darya a handmade calendar, counting down the days until he came home. She would fill it with plans for the future:

‘Pasha asked me to jot down ideas for how I’d like us to spend time together, so that once he was home, we could turn them into reality.’

Looking back on the past three years, Pavel says:

‘I’ve learned that when things don’t go to plan, the important thing is to stay calm and trust God, because he has it all under control.’

His case began back in May 2021, after investigators decided that attending worship services and discussing the Bible with fellow believers amounted to ‘participation in the activities of an extremist organisation.’