Local Jehovah’s Witnesses Head Acquitted by Gorno-Altaisk Court

On April 14, 2011, the Gorno-Altaisk City Court acquitted Aleksandr Kalistratov of charges under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code, incitement to religious hatred. He was fully absolved of any wrongdoing.

As the head of the local Jehovah’s Witnesses organization, the charges against Kalistratov came after he distributed literature about his religion that the Municipal Court of Gorno-Altaisk had deemed extremist in October 2009.

The trial is unique in that it is not only the first criminal case against a specific Jehovah’s Witnesses official, but also in its examination of banned Jehovah’s Witnesses literature on its merits with the participation of representatives of authors and publishers in the trial process. Previously, the Prosecutor’s Office had not considered such testimony in its charges against Jehovah’s Witnesses texts.

The trial attracted significant attention, which in our opinion is one of the reasons for the acquittal. Proceedings were monitored by the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, and received international attention, for example, in European Parliament.