Inver Siyukhov, One of Jehovah's Witnesses from Maykop, Served His Sentence and Was Released

On April 30, 2025, Inver Siyukhov, 51, who had been convicted for his faith, was released. He spent 4 years in the pretrial detention center, where the length of punishment is calculated on the principle of 1 year for 1.5 years. This is a record length of time that any Jehovah's Witness was held in a pretrial detention center. At the checkpoint, the believer was met by his relatives.

Inver Siyukhov was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment, but he was never sent to a penal colony. From the moment of his arrest until his release, he was in a pretrial detention center (Facility used for pretrial detention) at strict regime penal colony No. 1 in the village of Tlyustenkhabl, which is about 110 km from Maykop. Conditions of detention in such a facility are much harsher than in a penal colony. For a long time, Inver almost did not go out for walks due to the fact that about 40 prisoners were taken out into the small prison yard at the same time - most of them smokers. In such conditions, there was no opportunity to breathe fresh air or take any exercise. Even when indoors, Inver had to wear a hat due to the cold and constant drafts.

"In winter, there was sometimes no heating for weeks. If the temperature dropped below minus five degrees, frost formed on the walls, and it was very cold in the cell; we slept in our clothes. Also, there was often no hot water," the believer said about his time in detention. "Food was scarce, but relatives and friends regularly sent parcels. This helped not only me, but also other prisoners who saw the generosity of Jehovah's Witnesses, and their bias disappeared."

For 2 months after his arrest, Siyukhov did not have a Bible, and the first letters were handed over to him only 5 months later, after appeals to various authorities, including the Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, he received over 1000 letters. Inver, expressing gratitude to everyone who supported him, said: "One of the 'experienced' prisoners even admitted that he had never seen so many letters here before. And when the colony staff said that all these letters were for one person, he was completely shocked."

A letter of gratitude that Inver Siyukhov received from another prisoner. It says: ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for being you! You make this world a better place! To the best of your ability, you try to make this world a better place day by day. Reminding and showing by example what we should be, what we can become. As we may have been, but at some point we lost ourselves. Your eyes always shine with warmth.’

Wherever Inver was, he tried to provide practical help to those around him. After just 2 months in the detention center, 1 prisoner admitted that he had stopped lying, and 2 more quit smoking. One of his former cellmates sent a letter of gratitude to Inver and his fellow believer Nikolay Saparov. "Even here, you help people feel happy at least for a moment," he wrote. "You managed to restore my faith in people... This world needs you, we all need you!"

In the Republic of Adygea, after the release of Inver Siyukhov and Nikolay Voishchev, Nikolay Saparov remains in prison; he is due to leave prison in September 2026.