Jehovah's Witnesses in Cherkessk report believer's beating by police

Power agents of Cherkessk subjected to hours-long interrogation and beat up a 53-year-old Jehovah's Witness Vladimir Mirzoyan, said Ivan Belenko, the spokesman of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. Believers associate this situation with the conflict around the land plot, on which their liturgical building is built.

The liturgical building in question was built by believers themselves back in 2000. As stated in the press release of Jehovah's Witnesses, the building hampered the plans for erection of retail premises; therefore, believers received offers of alienation of the building and a part of the adjacent territory.

Ivan Belenko told the "Caucasian Knot" that on February 15, 2015, power agents searched the liturgical building, during which they first planted and then confiscated publications, which had been put on the list of extremist materials.

On March 5, administrative cases were opened against believers Dmitry Metelin and Andrei Volikov under "Production and distribution of extremist materials". On March 17, the Cherkessk City Court found them guilty.

According to Belenko, on May 21, a law enforcer brought Mirzoyan to a police station, where he was interrogated for six hours on the property of the religious community in Cherkessk.

On June 26, Mirzoyan was summoned again to one of power structures of Cherkessk. There, Mirzoyan was beaten up, said Belenko. After five hours of questioning, Mirzoyan, who was videoed, refused from his claim about violations of his rights by policemen. On June 30, the defence of Mirzoyan appealed against these actions of power agents.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.