OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Orthodox priest's 14-year "espionage" jail term
...At a closed hearing at the Russian-controlled Crimean Supreme Court in Simferopol on 2 August, Zaporizhzhia Regional Court jailed 41-year-old Ukrainian Orthodox priest Fr Kostiantyn Maksimov in a strict regime labour camp for 14 years on "espionage" charges. "I'm in such shock," his mother Svetlana Maksimova told Forum 18. He is likely to be illegally transferred to Russia after any appeal. On ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2924
OCCUPIED UKRAINE - Forum 18
...In early 2024, Russian occupation forces arrested a Protestant in her fifties for participating in a July 2023 prayer meeting in the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol. Prosecutors handed her criminal case to Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Court. In the same court is the criminal case against Ukrainian Orthodox Church priest Kostiantyn Maksimov for alleged "espionage". On 27 April ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2908
AZERBAIJAN - Forum 18
...On 22 September, a Goranboy court jailed 22-year-old Jehovah's Witness Seymur Mammadov for nine months for refusing compulsory military service on conscientious grounds. On 25 July ? two days after his 18th birthday ? officers seized conscientious objector Royal Karimov and forcibly took him to a military unit in Ganca, where he is still held. Baku's Sabail District Court extended to March ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2776
UZBEKISTAN: President to sign restrictive new Religion Law?
...Uzbekistan's new Religion Law [signed by the President 5 July, came into force 6 July] maintains almost all the restrictions on freedom of religion and belief in the current Religion Law. It continues to ban: all exercise of freedom of religion and belief without state permission; teaching about religion without state permission; sharing beliefs; and publishing, distributing or importing ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2670