{"id":66732,"date":"2026-10-13T16:14:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T13:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/memopzk.org\/?post_type=news&#038;p=66732"},"modified":"2026-10-13T16:14:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T13:14:59","slug":"jehovahs-witness-sean-pike-a-guyanese-and-russian-citizen-is-free-after-five-years-in-prison-for-his-faith","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/memopzk.org\/en\/news\/jehovahs-witness-sean-pike-a-guyanese-and-russian-citizen-is-free-after-five-years-in-prison-for-his-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Jehovah\u2019s Witness Sean Pike, a Guyanese and Russian citizen, is free after five years in prison for his faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On 2 October 2026, Sean Pike walked out of Penal Colony No. 9 in Russia\u2019s Novgorod Oblast, having served his sentence in full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to investigators, he and other Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses gathered at a home in Moscow to pray, read the Bible and drink tea together. For that, he was charged with \u2018organising the activities of an extremist organisation\u2019. He was arrested in August 2021 and sentenced to seven years in December 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of his time was spent in pre-trial detention, where he caught Covid-19 and developed hypertension. He also faced racial discrimination and, at first, had to sleep on the floor of his cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through it all, he kept caring for his wife and their two teenage daughters, one of whom has a disability. He supported them during visits and wrote each of them personal letters. Friends sent parcels and attended his court hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sean Pike says he now sees those years as a kind of course. \u2018I call it \u2018Know Yourself and the Father\u2019,\u2019 he said. \u2018I saw that God cares for us in advance and was always with me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On his release, he said: \u2018I\u2019m very happy. It\u2019s a feeling like no other.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, he is back with his family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-66732","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","news-type-nashi-novosti-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jehovah\u2019s Witness Sean Pike, a Guyanese and Russian citizen, is free after five years in prison for his faith - Political prisoners support. 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