Gilbert doctorow moscow times jehovahs witnesses

Russian courts have handed lengthy prison sentences to Jehovah’s Witnesses for organizing “extremist” activities over the past week in some of the harshest verdicts given to the religious group’s members yet.

Russia outlawed the nonconformist Christian denomination in 2017, subjecting thousands of worshippers to criminal prosecution, harassment and intimidation.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said Monday that a court in southern Russia’s Astrakhan region found four unnamed Jehovah’s Witnesses aged 38 to 47 guilty of organizing and participating in “extremist” activity.

One female defendant was jailed for 3.5 years, while three male defendants were jailed for 8 years.

The verdicts are tied with another sentence in the Far East Russian Amur region last June for the longest jail sentence handed to a Jehovah’s Witness.