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
...10 July 2026 UKRAINE: Conscientious objectors convicted, jailed, held in military units: list With no alternative civilian service available in wartime, prosecutors have launched more than 1,000 criminal cases against conscientious objectors, with about 500 cases already sent to court. In cases known to Forum 18 (listed here), 29 conscientious objectors are in jail serving sentences, with a ......
https://forum18.org/
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 - Ukraine - Page 2 of 12
...24 April 2025 UKRAINE: How should government deal with conscientious objectors in wartime? The declaration of martial law after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 cancelled the limited right to alternative service in peacetime. Hundreds of conscientious objectors to mobilisation ? on religious and non-religious grounds - have been detained, forced into the army, held illegally (often for ......
https://forum18.org/archive.php?country=88&page=2
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
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: 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
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
Forum 18: RUSSIA: Anti-war Orthodox journalist's 8-year jail term in ...
...On 24 March, a Moscow court handed exiled Orthodox journalist Kseniya Luchenko an 8-year jail term in absentia for an online post condemning a Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian children's hospital. She has lodged an appeal. If she returns to Russia, or visits countries with extradition agreements, she could be jailed. Luchenko is already on Russia's Federal Wanted List, "List of Terrorists ......
https://forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=3042
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