Eight years ago, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized the Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organization

On April 20, 2017, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation issued a decision recognizing the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” as an extremist organization and liquidated it. On July 17, the decision came into force, and on August 17 of the same year, the Ministry of Justice added all Jehovah’s Witness communities to the list of banned extremist organizations.

Over the past eight years, at least 904 Jehovah’s Witnesses or people mistakenly identified by security forces as Jehovah’s Witnesses have been subjected to criminal prosecution in Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories. 525 people have already been sentenced (97.7% of the sentences are guilty).

To date, at least 607 people are being prosecuted, of whom 183 are deprived of their liberty (108 people are in penal colonies, 46 people are in custody, 10 people are in correctional centers doing forced labor, and 7 people are under house arrest).

We consider imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses to be political prisoners.

You can view detailed statistics on persecuted Jehovah’s Witnesses in our dashboard.