Overview of the Trial in the Supreme Court of the Republic of Altay
January 27, 2010
Also in Russian
The trial started at 2:20 p.m. in a hall where over 30 people were in attendance. The trial was heard by a panel of judges composed of the presiding judge, M. V. Aleksina, and judges N. I. Sumachakova and B. Ye. Antukh.
First the interlocutory appeal of I. Yu. Ananyin, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, was heard. He is the suspect in the criminal case for exciting religious discord because he possessed publications that the Gorno-Altaysk Court of First Instance had declared as extremist without his testimony, which substantially affected his rights. After hearing the testimony of I. Yu. Ananyin, the court withdrew to the decision room and after 10 minutes refused to grant his appeal.
After a 15-minute recess, the hearing was resumed. The court dismissed the motions filed on behalf of the publisher of the publications. Among the motions was one to take photographs and video recordings and also to request materials from the city of Kemerovo regarding a criminal case during which an expert study of texts was conducted on the subject of their extremist nature. It was conducted by L. A. Arayeva and M. S. Yanitsky—the same experts who detected indications of extremism in the publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is noteworthy that the follow-up expert study (by the Russia Federal Center for Judicial Expert Studies at the Russian Ministry of Justice) declared the conclusions, assertions, and methods of the mentioned experts as unscientific. On this basis, that criminal case was discontinued on December 31, 2009. The said materials could have been used as proof of the experts’ incompetence and as a basis for assigning a repeat expert study. However, the court refused to grant any of the motions by the publisher’s representative.
Further, the court proceeded to consider the interlocutory appeals submitted on behalf of the publisher and the author of the publications. The representative of these organizations, A. S. Omelchenko, noted that the main object under consideration in the case is the publications, and not the activity of the Gorno-Altaysk Local Religious Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Therefore, from the applicant’s point of view, “the offender” is the publisher, but the publisher was not admitted for participation in the case. In addition, the representative pointed out that the experts who prepared the conclusion on the case should have been removed from the case, since the publications were translated and, therefore, there could not have been manipulation of the language. Questions could only be reviewed concerning the main ideas of the material; therefore, it was necessary to admit for participation a religion expert. After meeting, the court refused to grant both interlocutory appeals.
Further, the court heard and refused to grant all eight motions filed on behalf of the religious organization, The Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, and the Gorno-Altaysk Local Religious Organization—including admitting the expert studies related to the case, thus depriving Jehovah’s Witnesses of the opportunity to build their defense. The explanations of the cassation appeal submitted by attorney V. Yu. Zhenkov pointed out that the only proof in the case was the expert study; however, that study does not meet the requirements of the law. For example, even though a composite psycholinguistic theological expert study was ordered, the expert-psychologist participated in the study of only 10 out of the 18 publications, and the religion expert did not participate at all. In addition, it was pointed out that the publications were declared extremist based on indications that were not even specified in the law on counteracting extremism.
In spite of convincing arguments of the participants in the trial, the court did not ask a single question that would have shown the court’s desire to give an impartial appraisal of the arguments of both sides. The representatives of the prosecutor's office did not say much either.
As a result, after only a four-hour hearing of the case, the court pronounced the final ruling, refusing to grant all appeals submitted by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Decision of the Gorno-Altaysk City Court to declare 18 publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses as “extremist materials” remains unchanged.
Thus the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Altay consecutively repeated the logic of the decision made by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and became an additional piece of evidence of the planned campaign to restrict religious rights in Russia and to limit the right of freedom of thought and speech.