Forum 18 - Russia - Page 1 of 50
...28 July 2026 RUSSIA: Court challenges to denials of alternative service often fail Three Pentecostal conscientious objectors in Udmurtiya failed to overturn Conscription Commissions' rejections of their applications for alternative civilian service. The court agreed with the Military Commissariat in each case that they had "failed to substantiate" their conscientious views. "No matter how we ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?country=10
Forum 18
...17 September 2026 AZERBAIJAN: More than 50 prosecutions in 2026 for unapproved religious meetings A court in Baku's Binagadi District fined 8 Muslims two months' average wage each for holding "religious meetings and other religious activities in a private house". A court in Absheron District heard cases against 26 people who held an unapproved religious meeting in Mehdiabad. These were among ......
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OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Protestant woman on trial for Melitopol ... - 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
Forum 18: TAJIKISTAN: Secret Supreme Court hearing bans Jehovah's ...
...At the instigation of the General Prosecutor, a secret Supreme Court hearing in Dushanbe on 29 March 2021 banned Jehovah's Witnesses for a second time, nearly 14 years after they were first banned in Tajikistan. No one informed the Jehovah's Witness community either before the 2021 hearing or afterwards. They found out about the hearing and renewed ban only when the regime replied to the ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2860
Forum 18: AZERBAIJAN: Conscientious objector jailing "very unexpected ...
...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 12
...11 June 2025 OCCUPIED UKRAINE: "Bishop says no" on Ukrainian Orthodox entities The Russian-controlled Justice Department requested an "expert conclusion" on a Brotherhood of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Russian-occupied Luhansk from Russia's Justice Ministry. Its Expert Council said the Brotherhood provided "deliberately false information that it operates as part of the Luhansk diocese of ......
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
RUSSIA: Fined for citing Vatican, Scottish Episcopal texts
...A Moscow court fined an Anglican Christian three weeks' average wage under Russia's "gay propaganda" law for social media posts citing a Vatican declaration condemning "unjust discrimination" on the basis of sexual orientation and a Scottish Episcopal Church essay on equal marriage. This is the first known time a court imposed such a fine for sharing church documents. Amid ever-tightening laws ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2950
Forum 18: BELARUS: "They decided to fabricate a case and accuse him of ...
...On 1 April, the Supreme Court rejected Catholic priest Henryk Okolotovich's appeal against his 11-year jail term on treason charges. Both his trial and appeal were closed. In a message from prison, he denied "espionage for Poland and the Vatican". He rejected pressure to implicate the country's Catholic bishops. "Priests are being persecuted to shut our mouths, so that the Catholic Church does ......
https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2975
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