THE TRIAL OF FEDOTOV
Ivan Petrovich FEDOTOV (b. 1929, a builder) was arrested on 15 August 1974 (CCE 34.12).
From 10 to 18 April 1975 the Kaluga Regional Court examined his case. The presiding judge was Kuznetsov; the State prosecutor was a man of the same name. Fedotov conducted his own defence.
He was charged under four Articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code: 227 (“infringing on the person and rights of citizens under the guise of carrying out religious rites”); 190-1; 191 (“resisting a representative of the authorities or the public in the performance of his duty of safeguarding public order”); and 192 (“insulting a representative of the authorities or the public”).
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STATEMENTS
Under Article 227 Fedotov was accused of organizing unregistered prayer meetings. Five signed statements by officials were presented in evidence as material proof of this.
A statement dated 2 December 1972 declared: “Twenty-six believers were singing, i.e. performing religious rites. On the table were a Bible and a hymn book published in 1968.”
A statement dated 5 July 1973 ran thus: “When we came in, the believers were sitting around and talking and there was nothing on the table.”
In a statement dated 26 October 1973 it was said that “Ten guests were present, in addition to the residents. While this report was being compiled, Fedotov said, ‘You’re Gestapoists’, and refused to name his religious denomination or to sign his name.”
A statement dated 2 June 1974 said: “There were 31 people present, they read verses and sang to the accompaniment of a guitar.”
And the statement dated 4 August 1974 reported that “there were 150-180 people at the meeting, praying, singing and muttering; there were about 30 children. When they were asked to give their names and show their passports, they refused.” (This last statement was compiled at a wedding!)
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WITNESSES
Fedotov was charged under Articles 191 & 192 because on 26 October 1973, when representatives of authority (Deputy Rudakov of the district Soviet, police lieutenant Lovkov, and others) climbed over a fence, broke into Fedotov’s house, and Lieutenant Lovkov grabbed hold of him by the lapels, Fedotov said: “You’re behaving like the Gestapo,” and pushed Lovkov away.
It seems that Article 190-1 formed part of the charges against Fedotov only because at a meeting of the administrative commission of the district soviet executive committee Fedotov had said that the communist Lomovtsev, head doctor at the Medical Centre for Sanitary and Epidemiological Protection, was a drunkard.
The majority of the witnesses of this incident, members of the administrative commission, attributed the following statement to Fedotov: “You communists are drunkards.”
The judge behaved very rudely. When the witness Olga Loseva asked what the defendant was accused of, the judge answered: “We’re the ones who ask you the questions, not you us.”
When O. Loseva began to say, “I must –,” the judge interrupted her, saying, “That’s right, you must. Go and sign the record!”
When the witness Natalya Loseva started to describe in detail how the police broke into Fedotov’s house on 26 October 1973 (see above), the judge also interrupted her, saying, “All right, that’s enough. You sound as if you’re addressing a meeting. Who has incited you so much against the Soviet police?”
When N. Loseva protested, “As a witness I have the right to recount freely all I know about the case,” the judge cut her off. “You can demand your rights in your own home, but here you’re in a courtroom.”
V. I. Nazdrachev, presbyter of the Baptist congregation in the town of Maloyaroslavets, who appeared as a witness at the trial, stated that Fedotov had been driven out of the Baptist congregation, after which he had formed a separate group with 17 other members of the congregation.
When the judge asked if Fedotov’s ‘unregistered group’ was still meeting after his arrest, Nazdrachev replied: “Yes, they still meet. I have not been there myself, but one of our sisters went.” The secretary of Maloyaroslavets District Soviet Executive Committee told the court that presbyter Nazdrachev had twice applied in writing to the Executive Committee, and more than once in person, demanding that they ‘get rid’ of Fedotov,
The prosecutor alleged in his speech that Fedotov was being tried not for his convictions but for breaking the law …
“He organized a group of Pentecostals, including 17 Baptists and young children … The activities of Fedotov’s group are anti-social in character and are aimed at encouraging disobedience to Soviet laws, though this is not openly stated in the sermons … The Bible contains the words ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword’. They were quoted to indicate a veiled refusal to take the military oath … .”
The prosecutor demanded a sentence of five years’ imprisonment for Fedotov. In addition, he demanded that the witnesses P. I. Pyzhov, M. I. Smirnov and A. I. Smirnov should be criminally charged for refusing to give evidence.
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DEFENCE
In his defence speech Fedotov denied that he belonged to a group of ‘Pentecostal shakers’.
“When I moved to Maloyaroslavets I did not organize an underground group but went to the prayer house.
“Everyone here has testified that the presbyter let me sit beside him and that I spoke the Word of God; but later he expelled me because of envy and evil jealousy … Then he began to expel others, which was the reason for our meetings …
“I am a devout Christian and have never concealed this fact; representatives of the authorities came to our house and were present at our services. I do no harm to citizens’ health. All the children present were those of devout parents, and had become believers before they knew me.”
He also denied the charges made under other Articles. In his concluding statement, Ivan Fedotov also denied that he was guilty. He asked the court to take into consideration the fact that his dependants included his old mother who received no pension, an invalid aunt, a brother — a Group I invalid — and his wife.
“And as the prosecutor has asked for a sentence of five years’ strict-regime under Article 227, and as I am not guilty, I ask the court to limit its sentence to the period of imprisonment I have already served and to substitute five years’ exile for the five years of strict regime.”
SENTENCE
The court sentenced Fedotov to three years in a corrective labour colony of strict regime.
At the end of May an appeal court confirmed the sentence.
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CCE 34.12 reported that in the 1960s and 1970s Fedotov had served 10 years under Article 102 (RSFSR Criminal Code). In fact, he was tried under Article 107: “incitement to suicide”. In his defence speech at the trial, Fedotov said that the charge made against him in 1960 had been false.
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Incarceration of Birute Poskiene
The Chronicle has received a document entitled “A Statement of Accusation”, dated 31 January 1975, and signed “from eye-witnesses, witnesses and onlookers in the city of Kaunas”.
The addressee is not indicated. The ‘Accusation’ describes how Birute Poskiene, mother of three children (home address: Kaunas, 36 Demokratu Street, apartment 1), was forcibly put in a psychiatric hospital.
Birute Poskiene had some time ago
“began to lead a strange way of life, strange for both Catholics and atheists, by observing Saturday as a day of rest for herself and her children … and she changed to a vegetarian diet”.
The administrative commission in charge of minors and employment for youth in the Pozhelovsky district of Kaunas demanded that Poskiene should stop the religious education of her children and cease practising her religious cult of celebrating Saturday; that she should feed her children on meat and begin to bring them up in an atheistic spirit. Poskiene refused. Then the commission applied for a court order to deprive Poskiene of her parental rights.
At this time Poskiene was dismissed from her job for “being absent from work on Saturdays”. Poskiene had been a janitor at a school and had not worked on Saturdays for a whole year.
COURT CASE
On 18 September 1974 the people’s court of the Pozhelovsky district of Kaunas examined the case for depriving Birute Poskiene of her parental rights. Poskus, Birute’s husband, asked the court to put his wife “in a psychiatric hospital to cure her of her belief in God”.
Prosecutor Damaseviciene stated:
“I feel I must ask the people’s court and the Pozhelovsky district department of internal affairs, bearing in mind that she is a healthy mother capable of working, and with no disabilities, to assign her to work, so that, perhaps, when she has to work hard she might understand and, as they say, really begin to work, thus finding less time to read all kinds of writings, to go on trips with sectarians and to believe in God”.
(The Chronicle has preserved the original text of the ‘Statement of Accusation’.)
The court deprived Poskiene of her parental rights and transferred the children to the care of Poskus. The ‘Accusation’ reports that shortly before the court hearing Poskus had the children christened in the Catholic faith.
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Poskiene appealed against the decision to the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR.
On 22 October 1974 the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR heard Poskiene’s appeal. The hearing began with a question being put to Poskiene: “Do you belong to the ‘Sabbath Day’’ sect?”
In connection with this the ‘Accusation’ quotes the words of V. I. Lenin (Collected Works, vol. 7, pp. 172-3):
“No official should have the right even to question anyone about their faith: this is a matter of conscience and no one should interfere with it.“
(The authors of the ‘Accusation’ did not notice that these words were written before the October Revolution, Chronicle.)
The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the people’s court.
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PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
On 29 October 1974 two men came up to Poskiene on the street, showed her their red passes (of the KGB), ordered her to follow them, put her in a car and took her to Kaunas Psychiatric Hospital (75 Kuzmos Street).
The ‘Accusation’ emphasises that after 22 October Poskiene and her husband did not meet. The authors ask: on whose initiative was Poskiene forcibly placed in a hospital? They write:
“In her relations with other people up to 29 October 1974, Poskiene said nothing, did nothing, and performed no actions which might demonstrate that she was mentally unbalanced . . , And if we state that up to 29 October 1974 Poskiene was mentally healthy, we know what we are saying and take full responsibility for doing so.”
‘The Accusation’ reports that in the hospital Poskiene was put in special ward 3: she was given doses of powerful drugs which immediately affected her health: her sight deteriorated (for five days she could hardly see anything): she felt severe pains all over her body; and her legs were paralysed, so that she could not walk.
In the hospital she was asked: ‘Do you believe in the second coming of Christ? ‘ Many times the doctors at the hospital asked Poskiene to renounce her faith in God, offering to release her as a healthy woman if she did.
The Accusation ends as follows:
“If you do not take urgent steps for the immediate release of Poskiene and the restoration of her legal rights, we shall use every means to inform public opinion in our country and in the world generally about this evil deed … that will be our answer to your criminal inaction.”
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Persecution of Khailo family
Vladimir Pavlovich KHAILO (Voroshilovgrad Region, Krasnyi Luch, //mine 22-4 (bis), Severnaya Street 11) has described in ‘Notes of a Believer’ the persecution to which he, his wife Maria Yemelyanovna and their 14 children have been subjected by the local authorities. Khailo’s family are members of a Baptist congregation which does not belong to the official Baptist church.
Attempts have been made to dismiss the head of the family from his job and to reduce his wages.
Khailo’s eldest son Anatoly found a job with difficulty, but was soon almost entirely deprived of his wages. He tried to get work in the mines. He was answered: “Let the Baptists give you a job.” In 1974 he was falsely accused of taking part in a group rape. The court took no notice of evidence from witnesses who disproved the charge. Anatoly was sentenced to eight years.
Khailo’s daughter Lydia, having finished the eight-year school course, was not accepted for higher education, nor could she find a job; her school report stated that she was from a Baptist family and was herself a believer.
Two sons who are still at school are threatened with transfer to a special school for mentally retarded children.
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The authorities have doubled their efforts to influence public opinion against Khailo and his family: they publish libellous articles in the local press and carry out investigations into the family’s way of life, with pre-arranged conclusions.
Nevertheless a ‘denunciatory’ meeting, which was intended to ‘condemn’ V. P. Khailo, had to be held not in the car pool where he worked as a driver, but in a neighbouring one where he was less well known. Apparently the authorities are preparing local public opinion for the deprivation of the Khailos’ parental rights — such threats have often been made.
The authorities are striving ‘only’ to get Vladimir Khailo to return to a Baptist congregation that is controlled by the State. Furthermore he has repeatedly been asked to become an informer.
In July 1974 Mr and Mrs Khailo appealed to N. V. Podgorny to allow them and their children to emigrate to Canada.
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SMITS (LATVIA)
Janis Ernestovich Smits (Latvian SSR, Aizpute, 17 Kuldigas Street), pastor of the Aizpute congregation of Evangelical Christians and Baptists, and a member of the Episcopal Council of Latvian Baptists, has sent a declaration to the “Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR”.
He writes that in March 1974 P. Liepa, the representative of the Council for Religious Affairs in the Latvian SSR, took away his certificate of registration as a pastor for “blatant infringement of Soviet laws”.
‘The ‘infringements’ seemingly consisted of the fact that Smits had
“preached on apocalyptic themes, called on the believers to pray for believers in prison … and had allowed under-age children of believing parents to take part in church life”.
The church council, while trying to get the authorities to restore Pastor Smits’s rights, also asked him to continue to fulfil the duties of a pastor. On 27 February 1975 Liepa sent a ‘compulsory order’ to the church council, in which he again told them to forbid Smits to fulfil the duties of a pastor. He threatened the church council with dissolution if it disobeyed, and with the dispersal of the congregation. In spite of this the church council again asked Smits to continue with his duties.
Smits writes:
“It was I myself who, in order to make things easier for the congregation, and worried as I was about the future of my family, which includes 10 small children, applied for a visa to emigrate abroad … I have had this application turned down twice.”
Smits expresses the hope that the intervention of the Human Rights Committee “will end the persecution of our congregation and restore the violated rights of the believers …”
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EASTER
IN GEORGIA
In Tbilisi in 1975 ‘anti-Easter measures’ were announced by First Secretary Tsuladze of the city Komsomol committee, and by: the secretaries of the district Komsomol committees; officials of the Party district committees, and of the Komsomol district committees; the police and the procurator’s office.
In Kashveta Church, Komsomol vigilantes detained young people who were lighting candles in church and praying. Those detained were taken to the ‘vigilante headquarters’, photographed, interrogated and threatened.
In Zion Church a man of about 45 was detained for visiting the church together with his wife and small child.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava, members of the Action Group for the Defence of Human Rights in Georgia, tried to explain to citizens that since the constitution guarantees freedom of conscience to every citizen of the USSR, the actions of the vigilantes were illegal. For this M. Kostava was taken to headquarters. I. Chelidze, secretary of the Komsomol district committee, called his actions ‘a political crime’ and threatened him with dismissal from his job.
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IN MOSCOW
In Moscow, cordons of vigilantes sometimes allowed into the Easter services only those who were wearing crucifixes.
However, Andrei Grigorenko was not allowed into a church even after exhibiting his crucifix. Waiting police cars were pointed out to him and he was advised to go away while he was ‘still in one piece’.
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BAPTISTS
In issues 19-21 of the Bulletin of the Council of Baptist Prisoners’ Relatives many protests are published against the destruction of the printing shop of the Baptists’ “Christian” publishing house in Latvia (CCE 34.12), and against the sentence passed on G. P. Vins, secretary of the Baptist Council of Churches (CCE 35.3).
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At school No. 2 in Gagra, Georgian SSR, the children of believing parents are being driven out of the school. The headmaster warned parents: “They can either wear Pioneer scarves round their necks or get out of the school.” (Bulletin of the Council of Prisoners’ Relatives, No. 19).
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In the town of Kropotkin police led by Captain A. I. Gorokhov, the town police chief, broke into the house of S. Forsh during a religious service, without the permission of the procurator, searched the house and confiscated all the religious literature and tape recordings.
All the believers who were in the house at the time were taken to the police station. Some of them were given 10-15-day sentences. The owner of the house, a pensioner whose monthly pension was 30 roubles, was fined 50 roubles for holding a meeting for believers at his house (Bulletin of the Council of Prisoners’ Relatives, No. 20).
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DIVORCE
In October 1974 the people’s court of the Soviet district of Vladivostok heard the divorce case between religious believer Svetlana Vardapetyan and Yury Bregman (CCE 34.12). The people’s court decided to grant a divorce, to remove the children from Vardapetyan’s custody and to entrust their upbringing to their father, Yury Bregman; the respondent was to pay alimony.
On 23 December 1974 the civil appeal court of Primorsky Region (Krai) heard an appeal from Svetlana Vardapetyan. The procurator asked for the decision of the people’s court to be annulled. The appeal court decided that the decision of the people’s court concerning the removal of the children and payment of alimony had been incorrect since the people’s court did not have access to all the relevant documents (for example, a statement approved by the head of the district education department) during its investigation and had not verified the plaintiff’s living conditions, nor his ability to educate his children.
The appeal court confirmed the divorce and ordered that the decision of the people’s court
“concerning the removal of the children, the entrusting of the upbringing to Y. Bregman and the payment of alimony by S. Vardapetyan be set aside and submitted to a fresh investigation in the same court with different judges presiding”.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 