A Russian court has sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness to six years in prison for identifying with the organistion outlawed becuse of its extremism in the country.
The Jehovah Witness do not observe many orthodox Christian practices, including Christmas and Easter because it considers them pagan.
The Jehovah’s Witness, a Russian man, was sentenced by the court in the Siberian region of Tomsk on Tuesday for violating Russia’s law against participating in a banned organisation, the Russian branch of the Jehovah’s Witnesses said in a statement.
“The court’s decision was made on the basis of the existing legislation,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said in comments carried by Russian news agency Interfax.
In February, a Russian court in the central Oryol region sentenced another follower of the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith, a Danish man, to six years imprisonment for extremism.
Denmark’s top diplomat at the time, Anders Samuelsen, expressed concern at that sentencing, saying in a statement that Russia should “respect freedom of religion.”