Searches, Interrogations With Use of Force, and Detentions — Raid Against Jehovah's Witnesses in Ozersk

On January 17, 2025, in the city of Ozersk, Chelyabinsk Region, five apartments of Jehovah's Witnesses were searched. The raid was launched by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Chelyabinsk Region, which initiated a criminal case against Anton Parfenov under Article 282.2(1) of the RF CrC. Four men were detained.

The searches began at about 5:30 a.m. and lasted between 2.5 and 4 hours. Demanding passwords for electronic devices, law enforcement officers beat two men. The security forces, some of them wearing masks and carrying automatic weapons, seized Bibles, phones and laptops, personal notes, and photographs. In some cases, they tried to persuade the believers not to use Article 51 of the RF Constitution, which gives the right not to testify against yourself or your relatives.

After the searches, four men were placed in a temporary detention facility: Igor Smolnikov, Oleg Preobrazhenskiy, Artem Repin, and Yevgeniy Cherepanov, who traveled to Ozersk from another city to help his mother get to the hospital for an examination. In the coming days, a decision will be made on the preventive measure.

Update. On January 18, the court imposed detention as a preventive measure on Smolnikov, Preobrazhenskiy, Repin and Cherepanov. All four believers were sent to pretrial detention center No. 4 in Zlatoust,Chelyabinsk Region.

In Ozersk searches were carried out for the first time. In addition to those detained here, 16 more Jehovah's Witnesses have been prosecuted in the Chelyabinsk Region.