Martynov: Jehovah's Witnesses are still oppressed in Russian regions

Grigory Martynov also told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent about the recent operation of the FSB in Zalesovo village of the Altai Territory.

"On March 24, 2010, Irma Ivanovna Mikhel, 65, a resident of Zalesovo village, who is professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses, received a call from the militia asking her to promptly come for a conversation. The woman refused, explaining that she was Category 2 invalid, that she was heavily sick, took her medicine and was forced to stay in bed. Nevertheless, half an hour later she was visited by 2 persons: deputy militia head I. Ponamarenko and FSB operative agent D. Ipatov," said Mr Martynov, representative of the press service.

According to his story, without the old woman's permit and having no legal grounds the agents intruded into her apartment and confiscated all her bible literature. "When she tried to mark that these or those books were not on the list of extremist literature, the FSB said that 'not yet, but soon will be'," said Martynov.

The woman who is suffering from liver cirrhosis was brought to the police station and exposed to a three-hour-long interrogation. "Then, she was given some water and brought home. She felt worse and couldn't sleep after the emotional shock she had suffered," Mr Martynov has noted and added that Senior Lieutenant Ipatov, operative agent of the FSB Department for the Altai Territory deployed in the city of Zarinsk, had earlier detained believers and confiscated their literature without observing the due legal formalities.

On February 9, 2010, he arrived, together with two other FSB agents, to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses right in the course of their divine service and demanded a list of "parishioners". When refused, he threatened to detain everyone for three hours and began listing passport data and workplaces of all the believers present, said Grigory Martynov.

"And here, finally, on March 24, 2010, Ipatov violently searched and interrogated Ms Mikhel, an elderly disabled woman," he concluded his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The latter could not take any comments to this end at the local FSB Department or from Senior Lieutenant Ipatov.