Persecuted Crimean Jehovah’s Witness Sergei Filatov faces seven years in prison for “extremism.” Photo courtesy of Grati
Prosecutor Requests Seven Years in High-Security Prison for Jehovah’s Witness in Crimea OVD Info
February 25, 2020
During closing arguments in the trial of local resident Sergei Filatov, who organized meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the prosecutor asked the Dzhankoy District Court to sentence Filatov to seven years in a high-security penal colony, according to the online publication Grati, which cited Filatov himself as its source.
Filatov, who is currently free on his own recognizance, is accused of “organizing the activities of an extremist organization,” punishable under Article 282.2.1 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. According to investigators, Filatov, as the head of a religious organization, “undermined the foundations of the constitutional system and the security of the state.” The case files include an audio recording, made by local FSB field officer Vladislav Stradetsky, in which Filatov and other believers can be heard discussing religious topics.
The prosecution claims that Filatov is a co-organizer of a Jehovah’s Witness organization called Sivash, which held gatherings and religious lectures at the defendant’s registered domicile.
The only witness at the previous hearings in Filatov’s trial was a man named Verbitsky, a computer science teacher at a rural school. In September 2019, he testified that he had gone to Jehovah’s Witness gatherings right up until the organization was banned in April 2017, and therefore was unaware of Filatov’s further actions. In November 2019, however, he changed his testimony, saying he had continued attending meetings of believers for another six months or so.
Verbitsky claimed the defendant was intimidating him, so the judge honored his request to hold the hearings in closed chambers. The website Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia reports that the “intimidation” in question was phone calls from strangers. The defense made several requests to hold the trial in open chambers, but to no avail.
Filatov has four children, two of whom are minors. He considers the trial biased, and the whole case an instance of religious persecution.
“The prosecutor asked the judge to sentence me to seven years for extremist activity—seven years for religious convictions, for believing in God. There was no crime, no culpability. 1951 and 1937 are coming back. They happened in Russia and here [in Crimea]: there are people among us today who were persecuted and sent into exile. This is tyranny and genocide,” Grati reports Filatov as saying after the trial.
In November 2018, the security forces raided a number of homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Dzhankoy. Searches were conducted at several dozen addresses, but only Filatov was detained, allegedly because police found extremist literature and manuals on psychology and recruiting in his home.
On April 20, 2017, the Russian Supreme Court declared the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia an “extremist organization,” disbanded it, and prohibited it from operating in Russia. In August 2017, all Jehovah’s Witness organizations were placed on the official list of banned organizations, sparking a subsequent wave of criminal cases against members of the confession.
Translated by the Russian Reader
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Putin: Our Forces Stopped a Serious Threat to Russia in Syria Asharq Al-Aswat
February 24, 2020
President Vladimir Putin has revealed a decisive Russian military attack last week to prevent Turkish-backed Syrian opposition factions from advancing towards Neirab city.
The Russian military has rooted out well-equipped terrorist groups in Syria and prevented major threats to Russia, Putin said at a gala on Defender of the Fatherland Day.
The attack was followed by intense airstrikes on militant sites in Idlib province.
Putin’s statements came in line with accusations launched by the Kremlin against Turkey on its violation of the Sochi Agreement.
According to Russian sources, the military sought to prevent Ankara from trying to impose a new fait accompli by controlling sites that have been recently occupied by the regime.
Russia “will not allow the return of the previous situation, when Idlib province and its surrounding areas were under the control of Syrian factions,” the sources added.
Putin, however, revealed on Sunday another aim for his country’s intervention in Syria.
Russia’s officers and soldiers have confidently confirmed their high professionalism and combat capabilities, the strength of spirit and their best qualities during the military operation in Syria, he said.
“They have wiped out large and well-equipped terrorist groups, thwarted major threats for our motherland at distant frontiers, and helped the Syrians save the sovereignty of their country,” he stressed, thanking all soldiers who have participated in the fight in Syria.
Putin’s remarks highlighted information circulated on Ankara supplying the Syrian factions with US mobile anti-air systems, which enabled them to shoot down two Syrian army helicopters last week.
The Ministry of Defense said these weapons could be used against Russian forces, slamming Ankara and Washington.
It said both sides “cannot predict how and when the terrorists will use these weapons.”
Putin affirmed Moscow’s intention to continue to enhance its military capabilities and provide its armed forces with the most advanced arms, including laser weapons, hypersonic systems and high-precision systems.
[E]mpathy also requires identifying with the person you’re empathizing with. And sometimes you only identify with those whom you recognize. That’s a problem because part of solidarity is the people you don’t recognize. The people who you don’t see yourself in. And we’re raised in this particular era of liberal multiculturalism to see ourselves in others. When in fact I tell my students, “Look, not only do you not see yourself in others, but if we’re talking about enslaved people in the eighteenth century, I’m sorry, none of y’all can know what that means.” We can begin to understand not by simply imposing our own selves but by stepping outside of ourselves and moving into different periods of history. Understanding the constraints and limitations of people’s lives that are not us, as opposed to those who are like us. The fallback is always, “Well, if it were me,” or, “I can see how other people feel,” as opposed to, “Let me step outside myself.”
—Robin D.G. Kelley, quoted in “Solidarity Is Not a Market Exchange”: An Interview with Robin D. G. Kelley, Black Ink, January 16, 2020
Ivan Pryanikov, Venera Dulova, and Darya Dulova are considered “extremists” by the Putin regime. Image courtesy of Woman, Prison, Society
Charged with “extremism,” three Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sverdlovsk Region are awaiting the verdict in their trial. The defendants are Venera Dulova, who has a hearing disability, her twenty-year-old daughter Darya, and Alexander Pryanikov. The prosecutor’s office has asked the court to give them two to three years of probation.
According to the case file, all three prayed and read the Bible, “knowing that they belonged to an organization banned in Russia.”
The reading of the verdict is scheduled for 9:30 a.m., January 27, in the Karpinsk City Court (ul. Mira, 60)
By the way, Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted in Hitler’s Germany and the USSR during the Stalinist crackdowns.
Thanks to Grigory Mikhnov-Vaytenko for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader
Special Forces Raid Recreational Compound in Norilsk Where More Than 50 Jehovah’s Witnesses Were Gathered, Criminal Charges Filed OVD Info
October 22, 2019
On October 20, the Special Rapid Deployment Force (SOBR) raided a recreational compound in Norilsk where more than fifty Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered, later carrying out searches in some of their homes, according to a report posted the next day on the religious organization’s website. A source in law enforcement confirmed that the raid had happened, according to local news website Tayga.info.
“Masked commandos broke into the building and ordered everyone who was there to surrender their telephones and tablets,” said the report on the Jehovah’s Witness website. Some of the people were then taken away in minivans to be interrogated or have their homes searched. Witnesses noticed the Norilsk Nickel logo on some of the vans.
There is information about searches in five homes. They lasted around five hours. Police confiscated Bibles, computers, tablets, and telephones from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The interrogations took place at the local headquarters of the Russian Investigative Committee. The people interrogated were asked questions from a questionnaire consisting of twenty-five questions. In particular, they were asked about their affiliation with the “forbidden” faith.
According to Tayga.info’s source, criminal charges have been filed against the leader of the local Jehovah’s Witness community.
On April 20, 2017, the Russian Supreme Court declared the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia an “extremist” organization, abolishing it and banning it from operating in Russia. In August of the same year, all local Jehovah’s Witness organizations in Russia were banned, setting off a subsequent wave of criminal cases against members of the church.
In February 2019, a court handed down the first sentence against a Jehovah’s Witness involving a long term of imprisonment: Danish national Dennis Christensen was sentenced to six years in prison. He has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which has promised to review it.
Five Crimean Tatars were detained after searches of their homes in October 2016. They were charged with involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organization that has been banned in Russia. One of the five defendants, Teimur Abdullayev, was also charged with organizing cells for the organization in Simferopol.
During closing arguments, the prosecution has asked the court to sentence the defendants to between 11 and 17 years in prison. However, except for Abdullayev, who was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security prison camp, the other four defendants were given longer sentences than the prosecutor had requested. Uzeir Abdullayev was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Emil Jemandenov and Ayder Saledinov were sentenced to 12 years in prison, while Rustem Ismailov was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The convicted men had pleaded innocent to the charges. Their defense team plans to appeal the verdict.
“We are not terrorists. We have not committed any crimes,” Uzeir Abdullayev said in his closing statement. “I would also like to say that the criminal case [against us] was a frame-up, a fabrication. The secret witness alone was proof of that—and he was proof of our innocence. […] I thus want to show that human rights are violated in Russia and you violate your own Constitution.”
Nearly 70 individuals have been arrested in Crimea, occupied by Russia since 2014, as part of the criminal investigation into Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organization that is not illegal in Ukraine and most European countries. Most of the suspects and defendants in the case, include the Crimean Muslims convicted today, have been declared political prisoners by the International Memorial Society, an alliance of human rights organizations headquartered in Moscow.
It is known that four people have been detained. Eldar Kantimirov was taken from the village of Zarechnoye in an unknown direction. According to activists, he was charged with organizing a terrorist organization or involvement in one (Russian Criminal Code Article 205.2). The particulars of the case, like Kantimirov’s whereabouts and his official status in the case, are still unknown. They may have to do with the religious organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been declared a terrorist organization in Russia.
Riza Omerov, who lives in Belogorsk, was taken to FSB headquarters. His sister is married to Rustem Ismailov, a defendant in the Simferopol Hizb ut-Tahrir trial. Omerov has three children. His wife, who is seven months pregnant, has now gone into premature labor.
Ayder Jepparov was detained in the village of Zuya in the Belogorsk District. He was also taken to FSB headquarters.
Eskender Suleymanov was detained in Stroganovka, a village in the Simferopol District. He is the brother of Ruslan Suleymanov, a defendant in the Hizb ut-Tahrir trial. The activist was taken to FSB headquarters in Simferopol.
The homes of Ruslan Mesutov, in the village of Maly Mayak, and Lenur Halilov, chair of the religious community in the village of Izobilnoye, both located in the Alushta District, were also searched.
UPDATE. Ruslan Mesutov has been detained. Like Eldar Kantimirov, he has been accused of involvement in a terrorist organization (Russian Criminal Code Article 205.5 Part 2).
Lenur Halilov has been accused of organizing terrorist activities (Russian Criminal Code 205.5 Part 1).
Ayder Jepparov, Riza Omerov, and Eskender Suleymanov remain in police custody. It is still not known whether they have been charged as part of the criminal case.
A search has also been underway in the home of Enver Omerov, Riza Omerov’s father. FSB officers stopped his car and detained him during the night. OVD Info has been unable to ascertain whether the security forces have released him.
FSB investigator Sergei Makhnev, who has been involved in the case of the second Simferopol Hizb ut-Tahrir group, led the search. Makhnev has already stated Suleymanov’s case would be incorporated into this case.
UPDATE 2. Crimean Solidarity has reported that Riza Omerov, Enver Omerov, Ayder Jepparov, and Eskender Suleymanov were remanded in custody until August 5.
Russia has declared Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization. Its members have been charged and sentenced to long terms in prison only for gathering at people’s homes, reading religious books, and recruiting new members.
According to numerous experts, Hizb ut-Tahrir was wrongly declared a terrorist organization since its members in Russia have never advocated violence or been involved in terrorist attacks.
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Rostov: Prosecutors Ask Court to Sentence Simferopol Hizb ut-Tahrir Trial Defendants to 17 Years in Prison Krym.Realii
June 10, 2019
Our correspondent reports the prosecution in the first Simferopol Hizb Ut-Tahrir trial has asked the North Caucasus Military District Court in Rostov-on-Don to sentence the defendants to long terms in prison camps.
The prosecutor asked that Teimur Abdullayev be sentenced to 17 years, Rustem Ismailov, to 13 years, Uzeir Abdullayev and Ayder Saledinov, to 12 years, and Emil Jemadenov, to 12 years.
On October 12, 2016, five homes in Crimea were searched by police and security services. Consequently, the five men currently on trial in Rostov-on-Don were detained and charged with involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organization that was banned in Russia and Crimea, which Russia occupied in 2014.
On December 6, 2018, it transpired the five men had been transferred to a remand prison in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
On February 19, 2019, a secret witness was interrogated during a hearing of the Simferopol Hizb ut-Tahrir case by the North Caucasus Military Court in Rostov-on-Don.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamic political organization, says its mission is to unite all Muslim countries in an Islamic caliphate, but it rejects terrorism as a means of attaining their goal. They claim they have been unjustly persecuted in Russia and Crimea, which was occupied by Russia in 2014.
The Russian Supreme Court banned Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2003, placing it on a list of organizations deemed “terrorist.”
Defenders of the Crimeans convicted and arrested in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case argue they have been persecuted on religious grounds. Lawyers note that, while it has mainly been Crimean Tatars who have been persecuted by Russian law enforcement as part of the case, Ukrainian, Russians, Tajiks, Azeris, and non-Tatar Crimeans who practice Islam have also been persecuted.
International law forbids an occupying power from enforcing its own laws in occupied territory.
Fyodor Chistyakov: Russia Is the Freest Country—You Can Adopt a Constitution and Then Throw It Out Musician Fyodor Chistyakov has left Russia because of his religious beliefs, but promises to come back. True, only on tours. The newly minted New Yorker told Fontanka.Office what happened.
Nikolai Nelyubin Fontanka.ru
July 31, 2017
Fyodor Chistyakov
Have you really emigrated to the US?
It’s not quite like that. Circumstances are such in Russia at the moment that make it difficult for me to live there. But that doesn’t mean I’m planning to cut all the ropes and drown everything there. In the fall, for example, Nol [Chistyakov’s band] is planning to play concerts we promised to play long ago, and they should come off unless there is an act of God. We’re playing November 18 in Moscow, and November 23 in Petersburg. Otherwise, I will be spending more time in a different place.
Have you requested political asylum?
I’m not going to discuss that. I’ll just say things are in order on that front. I have an employment contract.
Did the ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia influence your decision to stay in the US?
That decision turned all members of the organization, including me, into outlaws. How can I live in a country where I’m an outlaw? The answer is simple: there’s no way I can. Hence everything that has happened.
Did you or your friends get any signals or threats after the Jehovah’s Witnesses were outlawed?
Yes, we did. For example, the authorities came to a friend’s house, confiscated all his computers, and searched the place, because he is a Jehovah’s Witness. I think this is a nightmare. I have a music recording studio at home. I can’t allow the state to dig around in computer files looking for signs of “extremism.” At the end of the day, it’s simply humiliating. It’s not a matter of danger, but of your state of mind: you’re always waiting for something to happen. I do long-term musical projects. It takes six months to record and release an album. But with things like this I can’t promise anything. What if I’m arrested tomorrow, say. Then I won’t be able to fulfill my obligations.
Fyodor Chistyakov, Live interview via Skype on Fontanka.Office, July 31, 2017
But earlier you did not publicly identify yourself with the organization or did you? What are you afraid of, if you’re not promoting anything? A Danish citizen has been arrested and jailed in the city of Oryol. When you look into the matter, you discover law enforcement has not even formulated the charges, but the man sits in jail. This is lawlessness. There are no laws or norms, no Constitution that protects human rights. As long as no one has taken an interest in you, you are free to party, so to speak, but if something controversial comes up, you won’t be able to prove anything. You’ll be ruined.
Yes, but now that you’ve openly said why you left, how are you going to give concerts in Russia? How can you avoid the risks you’ve mentioned?
According to my beliefs, every week I have scheduled events for worshiping God. This is what the Russian authorities consider “extremism.” If, for example, I come to Russia to give concerts, that is a specific goal. I come and go. But if I live in Russia, I would have to do all this somewhere on the sly.
Meaning the corpus delicti is the religious ritual, which you will not be performing in the Russian Federation?
Yes.
How have your friends in Russian and colleagues in the US taken the news of your move?
There are different opinions. There are people who support me, and people who openly mock me. Opinions are quite polarized.
What about the musicians in your band?
I think we’ll continue working together. There will be collaborations.
Can you explain the rationale behind the banning of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia? Why was it done?
The most terrible thing is there is no rationale. It’s inexplicable. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have lots of enemies. But I don’t understand why the Russian authorities had to adopt this ruling. There is talk of property they plan to confiscate. But this amounts to kopecks on the scale of the Russian state. The Witnesses were persecuted in Nazi Germany. But in the US, you ride the subway and read an ad that says if you encounter racial or religious discrimination, you can contact so-and-so.
But if someone promised you that everything here in Russia would be cool, would you come back?
That’s the thing. That’s the essence of life in Russia: there is no law. Someone says one thing today, and tomorrow he forgets it. Or he is replaced altogether. And who cares about me?
I’ll put it more simply. What must change for you to return?
I haven’t disappeared. I plan to visit. I plan to make music, only remotely.
What if the ban in Russia were overturned?
Hard to say. Right now the circumstances in Russia are quite alarming, and not only for the Witnesses. What’s alarming is that all the foundations have fallen and crumbled. Until a certain order emerges, it will be dangerous to live in Russia.
I recently read that a lawyer was unable to get a response from the court on a case. They failed to respond to his requests. He published an open letter in a newspaper, in which he described how the case had been handled by the judicial authorities. The courts should try and figure out the truth, but there is no objectivity in Russian courts. Russia is the freest country. You can adopt laws and then not enforce them. You can adopt a Constitution and then throw it out. Anything is possible. But that makes things a bit tricky if you want to have rights.
You will be told it’s like that everywhere in the world, but on a different scale.
I wouldn’t argue with that. But as long it doesn’t affect anyone personally, you can philosophize. But when the problems kick off, you just have to make a decision that will solve the problems. This is completely different.
What do think about how things in general are shaping up on the planet? You felt alarm in Russia. Is there no alarm in the US?
Things in Russia are quite disturbing. The main cause are the media. When you open a news website and read the headlines, the headlines are enough to flip your wig. Completely. But here [looks out window] life is calm. There is nothing like that here, in fact. You can avoid thinking about it if you don’t want to, if you don’t open your browser. In Russia, this is hard to pull off. You walk outside and immediately read something printed on banners. Here, on the contrary, you get the sense that politics is god knows where. The police are also god knows where. They are somewhere round the corner, but you don’t see them. I’m talking about New York. It’s calmer. As for real threats, the situation is unpleasant. It resembles the Cold War again. You could say it’s already underway. We’ve gone full circle. Everything is happening all over again, and I’m quite tired of it all, in fact. Generally, I have hope, of course, but I won’t talk about, because it is now considered forbidden in the Russian Federation. For the time being, there is little of this hope in the Russian Federation.
Okay, what are your future musical plans. “Time to Live,” the first track from the resurrected Nol, has been released. Is an album the obvious next step? Will it be nostalgic, like your previous LP, Fyodor Chistyakov: Nol + 30? Or will it be something different?
Yes, aside from the fall concerts in Russia, we have the idea to record a Nol LP. I’ll start working on it in the very near future. In any case, it will be a new album with new songs. The new song “Time to Live” I recorded with Alexei “Nichols” Nikolayev [a member of the classic Nol line-up]. It was just the two of us who recorded the track. I really liked it. It turned out quite well. I would like to keep working and record the whole album in this vein.
Will you be recording in the States or Petersburg?
It’s going to be an intercontinental project.
Better intercontinental Nol albums than intercontinental missiles, eh?
Probably. [Laughs.]
Will the new Nol album be as militant as your last songs, from the LP No Fools, and the new singles “Went Mental” and “Time to Live”? Or will it be more lyrical? How much material do you have and what is it about?
I wouldn’t say the material is ready. Some songs are more or less ready, while others are still only sketches. But, ultimately, I think the material will be good. It won’t leave you bored.
Thanks, Fyodor, for this “intercontinental” conversation.
It’s just like from a space station.
The voting in our official group broke down as follows. 84.8% of users said they understood people who leave Russia. (“Yes, it’s everybody’s right.”) Only seven percent agreed with the statement, “No, who then will be left?” An interesting outcome?
Quite interesting, and quite encouraging that there are so many people who respect the rights of others—at least, on Fontanka. Office.
Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Comrade Uvarova for the heads-up
Fyodor Chistyakov and Nol (Zero), “Time to Live” (2017)
No article about Fyodor Chistyakov and Nol would be complete without this oldie but goodie from a much better time, whatever the wiseguys says about it now. It was a free country then. Just listen to the lyrics. Back then the song was in constant rotation on just about every radio station, at least in Chistyakov’s hometown of Petersburg. TRR
Persecuted for Yoga An article by Dmitry Ugay, a follower of Vaishnavism who has studied and practiced the ancient science of reality for many years Hare Krishna in Novgorod the Great
January 2, 2016
On December 1, 2016, the Indian philosophy of yoga was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Culture of Humanity. A bit earlier, on October 22, 2016, I gave a lecture entitled “Varieties of Yoga” and was also written up—on a misdemeanor charge for violating the so-called Yarovaya Law. I was charged with engaging in missionary work, a charge of which I am innocent. I was not even allowed to familiarize myself with the charge sheet. I am concerned by the complete lawlessness of the incident, which could result in the persecution of my many fellow citizens who practice yoga and study Indian philosophy, completely unaware of the possible dangers.
There was recently a wild discussion on Facebook of an article by the Indian national Prasun Prakash, who was pelted with foul accusations and insulted. Later, an attempt was made to break into the Center for Promoting the Preservation and Development of Indian Culture, founded by his father. It is amazing that people are being persecuted for work that even the most subtle interpretations could construe as missionary work. People are being persecuted for practicing yoga, a culture whose history dates back several thousand years, for yoga, who beneficial health effects have been confirmed by a myriad of medical studies. Even in the Soviet Union, popular science films about yoga were shot and publicly screened. The Soviet science fiction writer Ivan Yefremov wrote about yoga, and it was taught to Soviet cosmonauts as part of their physical training. Carl Jung wrote about yoga’s serious therapeutic value, and over 250 million people worldwide practice yoga seriously. In a word, there are signs that a campaign against an entire culture has been unleashed, a campaign against one of humanity’s supreme achievements, a very nasty xenophobic campaign not only against yoga, but against India, its traditions, and its people.
I had been invited to given a lecture on the varieties of yoga at the Veda Life Festival on October 22, 2016, at Loft Project ETAGI in Saint Petersburg. The audience consisted of neophytes, many of whom would be hearing about Indian philosophy for the first time. I tried to make the lecture as simple as possible. Nowadays, yoga is seen mostly as a means of wellness. The general public knows nothing about the worldview on which yoga is based, on its high ethical and spiritual standards. So I emphasized the philosophy and ethic of yoga. In my lecture, I talked about the fundamentals, the things one might here in classes on comparative religion and eastern philosophy at liberal arts universities in Russia. True, I had to make some effort to do this, because I had shout over the loud music playing next to me on the stage.
I was interrupted after about forty minutes. The audience was visibly agitated. I didn’t immediately understand what the matter was, noticing only later that police officers had entered the room. Two officers came up to me, one in uniform, the other in plain clothes. As I learned later, there was a total of six or seven officers. The others went to inspect the other events at the festival, checking people’s papers, looking for the organizers, and acting nervously when people took pictures of them, officers of the law at a public event.
They asked me rather rudely to go with them. Initially, they wanted to lead me out of the building without letting me put my coat on. They behaved rudely and cheekily in a calculated attempt to intimidate me and keep me from coming to my senses. Fortunately, Sergei, a professional attorney who was attending the festival, turned up in the audience. He forced the police to let me put on my coat. He persistently asked the officers whether I was officially under arrest or not, but the officers kept mum. They were trying to spirit me out of the building quickly, but the lawyer was clearly putting a spanner in their works. He asked them to draw up an arrest sheet. He asked them to show us their IDs. He insisted he intended to act as my advocate and demanded that I be allowed to write up a power of attorney in his name.
The police officers silently ignored all these legitimate requests and forcibly dragged me to the exit, where a car was parked. Resisting the police meant giving them grounds for yet another charge, in this case a completely real charge, so I had to obey. Outside, yet another uniformed officer joined us. Sergei threatened to call the prosecutor’s office directly. One of the officers finally produced an ID: Arsen Magomedovich Magomedov, a detective with the 76th Investigative Division. I was pushed into a police car. The police gave Sergei the brush-off, and he and my friends set off after us in a cab.
I was taken to the 76th police precinct on Ligovsky. Sergei telephoned and asked what shape I was in. I remember that the police detectives laughed. They asked whether I understood that I would be put on trial, and that the judge would ask me unpleasant questions. They persuaded me to sign a statement they had written up beforehand They said if I signed, I would go home peacefully, but if I didn’t, they would put me behind bars for 48 hours: they had the right to do it.
Sergei had warned me that under no circumstances should I sign anything. Following his instructions, I refused to sign, invoking my right not to testify against myself under Article 51 of the Russian Constitution. They wrote down that I had refused to sign the statement and threatened to take me to court. I replied that, as officers of the law, they could perform their professional duties. A beat cop asked whether I understood that I was engaged in illegal missionary work, and what lay in store for me.
It was the height of absurdity. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Mircea Eliade had no idea that a simple recounting of their world-renowned academic works would be dubbed missionary work and sectarian preaching. In keeping with this rationale, any lecture on Indian philosophy at any university could be dubbed missionary work. But I was merely discussing how the various yogas imagined the law of karma and the way of liberation. Hundreds of similar lectures are given annually to students in different university departments. They form the basis for course exams and honor’s theses. How would this mass of students feel were they to learn that they are now illegal missionaries? The level of nonsense has clearly gone off the scale.
At the precinct, there was a rather educated looking man among the officers. I don’t remember whether he was in uniform or not. He asked what my religious views were, how I viewed Russian Orthodoxy, whether I had a spiritual name, and whether I lived at home or the temple. I could not understand at all what this had to do with my case. I replied that I believed in Krishna, but in this instance it was completely irrelevant. It was my profoundly personal affair whether I believed in Krishna, Buddha, Cthulhu or a pasta monster. My lecture had not been about that. Besides, worshiping God was one variety of yoga, namely, Bhakti yoga. Hearing an unfamiliar concept, the officer left me alone.
Then I was asked where I worked. I replied that I worked as a web programmer. They asked for and took my internal passport. I sat down on a bench in the waiting room along with other detainees.
Two hours later, a detective came for me. He sat down at a desk and wrote something with an intimidating look on his face. Right then, Sergei called again. He told me to telephone the prosecutor’s office and file an oral complaint against the actions of the police detectives, because they were obliged to draw up a charge sheet and release me. They did not have the right to detain me. He texted me the on-duty number at the prosecutor’s office.
The detective said I had the right to make only one phone call (just like in American films about dangerous criminals!) and ordered me to switch off my phone, threatening me with force if I didn’t. I turned my phone off. Then he gave me a blank sheet of paper and said I had two options. I could go on denying everything and then I would spend a minimum of 48 hours behind bars here. He would lock me up in a cell, and then I would go to court. Or I could write out handwritten promise to report to the precinct on such-and-such a date and sign it, and I would be released immediately. I said I would not sign a blank piece of paper.
“Are you a moron?” the detective asked.
“Call me what you like,” I replied.
He left. I stayed in the waiting room. A woman who was not let out to use the toilet was wailing and cursing in the holding cell. Other police officers came and went, dealing with the current crop of detainees. Crates filled with fruit and peppers stood in the corner: a woman had been detained for selling them. She poured grapes into plastic bags and very humbly handed them over to the police officers. She was released, but her crates were left behind. Someone else had been detained for not registering his car, while another man had been brought in for swearing in an Okay grocery store. The female desk sergeant quarreled with the women in the holding cell and the detainees, swearing at them.
I had been sitting there for a fairly long time. Three detainees had already been released from the front desk area. One of the detectives came in and asked the desk sergeant for the papers “on the Hare Krishna,” grabbed them, and left.
I went to the toilet. There were double doors in there without latches. I finally turned on my phone and called my friends. They had been scrambling on my behalf. They called me down and said I would be released soon. Soon after, the desk sergeant did in fact say I was free to go.
“And my passport? My passport was confiscated,” I asked.
She expressed surprised and walked out of the room. Ten minutes later, she gave me back my passport.
I headed out of the building. Passing a bored officer, I asked for a copy of my arrest sheet. He looked at me as if I were an imbecile and said I wasn’t supposed to get a copy. Really? What about procedure?
There was nothing I could do, so I left the building. I hugged my friends and got into their car. We headed home.
Later, I learned that my case had been sent back by the judge due to multiple procedural violations and the lack of corpus delicti. The arrest sheet in the case file had been filled out extremely clumsily. I also found out that, two months later, the old arrest sheet had been destroyed and a new one drawn up that took into account the judge’s criticisms. The judge admitted this arrest sheet into evidence, along with a charge sheet filed several days (!) before my lecture. The case file also included the testimony of two fake witnesses, two women, one of whom had not even my lecture. All this time I sense what Sartre meant by the phrase “being under the gaze” and the saying “We were born to make Kafka a reality.” I hadn’t studied philosophy under Valery Sagatovsky in grad school for nothing. He had been depressed by the state of affairs in Russia. Unfortunately, now, several years after his death, the situation is even more alarming and uncertain.
Indian philosophy has greatly enriched Russian culture. The impact of Indian though on the Russian Silver Age was huge. The complete academic translation of the Mahabharata was published in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, an edition that required titanic efforts on the part of the editors and commentators. Numerous works by classic Indian thinkers, writers, and poets have been published. And who can imagine Russian today without the Indian cinema? Without Indian dance? Without yoga? Without vegetarian food? Is this Russia coming to an end?
P.S. I seek the help of religious studies scholars, lawyers, civil rights activists, reporters, and anyone who could help out by publishing this article in print and online publications or read the transcript of the lecture and confirm, as experts, that it contains no signs of missionary work.
Dmitry Ugay, “Varieties of Yoga” (lecture), Loft Project ETAGI, Petersburg, October 22, 2016
Also, if possible, you can support me by mentioning my court hearing in your publications, blogs, and social network pages. This will help avoid such incidents in the future. The hearing takes place at 3:10 p.m on January 9, 2017, in Saint Petersburg at 26 Fourth Soviet Street, Room 11, Section 211 (near Ploshchad Vosstaniya subway station).
With respect and gratitude,
Dmitry
UPDATE. A Petersburg court threw out the case againt Mr. Ugay on Wednesday, January 18, 2016.
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E.M. Maha-Balarama Prabhu, “The Law on Missionary Work: A Survival Guide,” July 10, 2016, Moscow (in Russian)
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