Among others, a captain from the criminal police, as well as a captain and lieutenant from the intelligence service's special department for extremism showed up at the apartment. With them were two people in an intoxicated state as witnesses.
Without producing a warrant, they began recording video and searching the apartment. The pensioners were then told to come to the police station for questioning. During the interrogation, the believers were accused of being involved in unregistered religious activity.
Accused of selling drugs
On April 3, the believers were again called to the police station and detained for 6 hours. On that occasion, a report was written accusing them of illegal religious activities, and at the same time it was also written that they were involved in and were accused of storing and selling drugs!
Unfortunately, some of the older people signed this indictment without reading it first. When it was made clear to them that they were also charged with selling drugs, the rest refused
to sign, and the authorities then threatened to delay the case by a full day.
On April 18, four of the believers: Nina Afanasyeva, Natalya Mananskaya, Yekaterina Balaeva and Oleg Savitsky were each fined approximately $3,280 to be paid within a month.
Elderly in hospital - and suffering psychologically under accusations
On April 19, three more of the believers were fined approximately 6590 kroner. Two of the elderly believers are currently in hospital because the whole thing has been very hard for them.
them psychologically and their health is not good. They have not yet received a summons or a fine.
The believers in Zhaskent were accused under the law "On Religious Activities" of holding the meeting in small religious groups instead of holding it in a registered church building. The church in Zhaskent was one of the churches denied registration by the authorities last year because they were smaller
than 50 people.
A representative of the nine believers has contacted the Danish European Mission and asked for help to take their case to court so that the pensioners do not have to pay these fines.
The importance of legal advice
Supporting Christian leaders with legal counsel through skilled and competent Christian lawyers helps defend Christians and hopefully win the very expensive and complicated lawsuits that Christians cannot fight themselves, nor can they afford to fight with their own resources.
In addition, it is a great advantage that the lawyer is a Christian himself, and therefore understands the Christian he is legally defending.
Since litigation is very costly, every gift of money is needed to help persecuted Christians in need of legal representation. We therefore ask that you help the persecuted Christians who are in dire need of legal representation.
