Detained Jehovah's Witness in Russia sentenced to community service

A Russian court has sentenced a Jehovah's Witness detained for more than a year to community service instead of prison time.

A spokesperson for the Jehovah's Witnesses told the Washington Examiner that Valeriy Moskalenko, 52, who was accused of "organizing the activity of an extremist organization," was ordered to perform 2.2 years of community service. Moskalenko's time in pre-trial detention will be counted and thus he is effectively done with his community service.

Moskalenko was released from prison, but is not allowed to leave Khabarovsk for six months.

Jarrod Lopes, a Jehovah's Witness spokesperson, told the Washington Examiner last week that Moskalenko's arrest would be viewed as "a crime of religious persecution," regardless of whether he was sentenced to prison.

Moskalenko was arrested last August during a raid by riot police and state security services which targeted him and several other Jehovah's Witnesses in Khabarovsk, a city of about 600,000 people in southeast Russia. Agents searched his home for five hours, and he was ultimately charged with "organizing the activity of an extremist organization."

The Russian government has targeted Jehovah's Witnesses for several years. In April 2017, Jehovah's Witnesses were banned as an alleged “extremist organization,” supposedly because they discourage blood transfusions.

As of August, almost 250 Jehovah's Witnesses were facing criminal charges, with almost 40 in detention, 24 under house arrest, and over 100 facing restrictions. Raids on the homes of Jehovah's Witnesses have increased more than 100% from 2018, to an average of 47.2 per month.