Six More Searches Conducted at Homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Searches Affected Several Families

On the evening of 25 May, 2023, searches were conducted at six addresses of residents who are Jehovah's Witnesses in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Presumably, a criminal case was initiated for their faith.

The searches started around 8 p.m. and lasted almost until midnight. The believers were communicating with each other via video conferencing at the time.

In Radion Shitov's apartment investigative actions were headed by Lieutenant of Justice A. Tereshchuk, investigator of the Investigative Committee for the Khabarovsk Territory and the Jewish Autonomous Region. FSB officer Aleksey Krupnov and testifying witnesses also participated in the search. Shitov's personal notes "indicating membership in the Jehovah's Witnesses religion", according to law enforcement officers, electronic devices, media storage, and medical books from Russian publishers on alternatives to blood transfusions were seized. The next day he was summoned for interrogation as a suspect to the local branch of the Investigative Committee. The summons was issued by investigator Leonid Kuznetsov.

Thirty Jehovah's Witnesses are already being prosecuted for their peaceful religious beliefs in the Khabarovsk Territory, four of them in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.