Forum 18
...1 September 2025 OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Russian-imposed punishments for meeting for worship, sharing faith Russian Police and Anti-Extremism Police in occupied Ukraine raided Council of Churches Baptist worship meetings, on 8 June in Krasnodon and on 10 August in Sverdlovsk. Russian-controlled Krasnodon Town Court fined Pastor Vladimir Rytikov a month's average wages for "missionary activity" for ......
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Forum 18: OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Protestant woman on trial for Melitopol ...
...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
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
AZERBAIJAN: Conscientious objector jailing "very unexpected decision"
...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
Forum 18 - Ukraine - Page 2 of 11
...18 October 2024 UKRAINE: Recruitment offices, military detain, pressure and torture conscientious objectors On 11 June, Recruitment Office officials tortured Adventist conscientious objector Pavlo Halagan to pressure him to accept mobilisation. "They tied me to the bed with chains and began to physically torture, punch and beat me," he complained. On 1 July, at a military camp, "one commander ......
https://forum18.org/archive.php?country=88&page=2
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
Forum 18
...KAZAKHSTAN: 15-month criminal investigation of anti-war priest Orthodox priest Yakov (Vorontsov) faced difficulties with his diocese after criticising Russia's war against Ukraine in March 2022. After an "emotional" August 2023 Facebook post saying the Russian Orthodox Church "has long had nothing in common with Christianity", police summoned him after an anonymous denunciation and call for ......
https://www.forum18.org/index.php/archive.php?article_id=2967