<<No 52 : 1 March 1979>>

[1] ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS. [2] ADVENTISTS. [3] BAPTISTS.

[4] PENTECOSTALS.

*

1. ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS

OGORODNIKOV

On 10 January 1979 the Konakovo people’s court (Kalinin [Tver] Region) sentenced Alexander Ogorodnikov (CCE 51.15) under Article 209 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (“leading for a long time of a parasitic way of life”) to one year in ordinary-regime camps [¹].

An appeal by counsel E. A. Reznikova for an examination to be conducted to determine whether he was fit for work (Ogorodnikov is ill) was rejected by the court. Reznikova asked the court to acquit the accused. Ogorodnikov told the court that he was being persecuted for his faith.

Ogorodnikov was dispatched under escort to the Far East. In transit the warders beat him up when he asked to see a priest.

*

CHRISTIAN SEMINAR

On 10 February 1979, two policemen and several civilians carried out a search at a flat in Mayakovsky Street in Moscow.

They did not produce their documents or a search-warrant, and the civilians were said to be vigilantes. A regular meeting of the Christian Seminar [²] was being held in the flat at the time. The visitors photographed the assembled group, were rude and used the familiar (“thou”) form of address.

In an attempt to take the notes of Tatyana Shchipkova (CCE 49.14-1, CCE 51.15) from her, they twisted her arms. In self-defence Shchipkova hit one of the people holding her.

The outcome was that the following were confiscated:

• works by Sergy Bulgakov and Yevgeny Trubetskoi;
• a pre-Revolutionary edition of Berdyaev’s Theological Works;
• a New Testament, a Bible (Moscow Patriarchate edition); and
• six copies of the journal Obshchina [Community], published by the Seminar (CCE 49.14-1, CCE 51.15).

*

No record of the confiscated material was drawn up. The Seminar members were taken to Police Station 60, where they were detained until midnight.

Starosvetov, the head of the station, stated that Shchipkova would have to answer for her action.

The members of the Seminar sent an appeal to A. S. Plekhanov, Moscow Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs. They considered the religious activities of the Seminar inseparable from the Orthodox faith, they wrote, and asked for an end to the persecution. The letter also contained a protest against the sentencing of Alexander Ogorodnikov.

*

MAKEYEVA

From 18 September to 8 December 1978 Valeria Makeyeva, a nun, was held under examination in the Serbsky Institute. She was ruled not responsible; compulsory treatment in an SPH was recommended.

In her youth Makeyeva (b. 1929) was a novice in a nunnery: she took the veil in 1946. She was imprisoned for a number of years. After her release she lived in a convent, and when it was closed (around 1959) she moved to a suburb of Moscow.

According to information received from Makayeva’s relatives, she has frequently been persecuted for engaging in religious propaganda and making religious artefacts. She has earlier been subjected to compulsory treatment in Moscow City Psychiatric Hospital No. 5 (Stolbovaya Station).

Makeyeva was arrested on 15 June 1978. She was charged under Article 162 (RSFSR Criminal Code: “engaging in a forbidden trade”) and prosecuted (CCE 53.7).

*

Her cousin V. N. Cheverev sent a letter to the General Secretary of the World Psychiatric Association.

He requested help to prevent Makeyeva from being placed in an SPH. During the examination at the Serbsky Institute she declared that earlier in her life she had feigned mental illness, because she was afraid of being sent to a camp.

*

2. ADVENTISTS

TASHKENT TRIAL

On 15 January 1979 the trial began in the Tashkent Regional Court of Vladimir Andreyevich SHELKOV, Head of the True and Free Seventh-Day Adventists (TFSDA), and of other Adventists arrested in Tashkent during March and April 1978:

Sofya Prokopovna FURLET; Ilya Sergeyevich LEPSHIN, Sergei Ivanovich MASLOV (CCE 49.14-1 contains an inaccuracy) and Arnold Albertovich SPALIN (CCE 49.14-1).

The Judge was N. S. Artemov, Deputy Chairman of Tashkent Region Court.

All the accused were charged under Article 191-4 (Uzbek SSR Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code). Shelkov, Spalin and Lepshin were also charged under Article 147-1 (Uzbek SSR Criminal Code: “infringing on the person and rights of citizens under the guise of performing religious rites”).

Lepshin was further charged under Article 70 (Uzbek SSR Criminal Code: “evasion of a routine summons to active military service”).

See trial CCE 53.3-1 and CCE 53.3-2.

At the beginning of the court session the defence counsels petitioned for the relatives of the accused to be allowed into the courtroom. Only then were Shelkov’s daughter-in-law, Spalin’s mother and Furlet’s sister admitted.

The remaining relatives and fellow-believers managed to get into the courtroom only towards the end of the session, after the lunch-break. A specially invited public attended the hearing of the case.

*

The accused announced their petitions to the court.

Maslov asked that relatives be admitted freely to the trial.

Spalin asked that the surnames of those stopping the defendants’ relatives from entering the courtroom be recorded. Then Spalin addressed the following petitions to the court:

• to carry out a handwriting examination on a text ascribed to him;
• to examine his personal involvement in the publication of the literature confiscated during searches in March 1978;
• to give him the chance to study several pages of the case; and volume 12, which had been recompiled in a new form;
• to clarify whether the terms of Article 57 of the Basic Principles of Legislation on National Education are discriminatory with regard to believers;
• to be governed by Leninist decrees in questions of conscience arising from the examination of the case;
• to return the religious literature, tape-recorders, etc. confiscated during the searches.

Shelkov petitioned for the following to be produced in court: extracts from the Herald of Truth journal confiscated from him, which contained 200 addresses of imprisoned Christians; a letter to those attending the CSCE Belgrade meeting which contains 62 such addresses; and a book by Bershadskaya.

The KGB agencies had not allowed him to study the case fully, Shelkov declared: he was now petitioning for the opportunity to do so. Considering his state of health and his age (83), he would require at least two months to do this.

The defence counsels supported the petitions of the accused.

Shelkov’s counsel, Spodik, recounted that immediately after he had been engaged to defend Shelkov he had been sent to pick cotton, and was kept there for about a month rather than the originally specified ten days. During this time the investigation was completed and, since the case materials were always ‘somewhere else’, he could not study them properly.

*

The court granted only the requests of Shelkov and Spalin that they be given the opportunity to study the case more fully. Shelkov was given two weeks and Spalin two days to do so. An adjournment until 29 January 1979 was then announced.

During the court session Judge Artemov, in utter disregard of Shelkov’s age, made him stand up and sit down, time and time again. He also interrupted the defendants rudely, making jokes about their names and those of their lawyers.

*

The session of 29 January began with a declaration by Shelkov.

Shelkov thanked the court for granting him a further opportunity to study the case, but pointed out that nine working days, at his age and in his state of health, had proven insufficient for even a superficial reading of the 37 volumes of the case. In his opinion, with concentrated work he would need at least one day per volume, i.e. to study the case fully he would need another month.

Spalin also thanked the court for giving him the opportunity to study the 12th volume of his case. He then petitioned for a further five days to look through volumes 9 to 20. He also asked to be given several books incriminating him, and the ‘Criminal Code’ and ‘Code of Criminal Procedure’ of the Uzbek SSR, so that he could prepare his defence. In addition, he asked for a meeting with his lawyer Trach, to obtain legal advice.

The other defendants did not object to the petitions of Shelkov and Spalin, and the lawyers collectively supported them. In the time allotted them, commented the defence lawyers, they had managed to make only a partial and superficial study of the case: that was insufficient for a satisfactory defence.

The Procurator objected in a rude manner to the defendants’ petitions.

*

POSTPONEMENT

Taking into consideration Shelkov’s state of health, his age and his conscientious attitude to studying the case, the court ruled that the trial be postponed by approximately one month.

It was decided to meet Spalin’s petition in part only, granting him five days to read volumes 9 to 20 of the case and the opportunity to consult a lawyer.

At this point the session was closed [³]. On this day four of the defendants’ close relatives were admitted to the courtroom.

On 12 January Shelkov’s daughter, Dina Vladimirovna LEPSHINA, sent an open letter to Amnesty International. It contained information concerning the case being prepared against Shelkov and a request for representatives of the organization to be sent to the trial [⁴].

*

RIGA

In December 1978 the Adventist couple Darguzis, who live in Riga, sent the Tashkent Procurator a declaration about a search conducted at their home on 17 March 1978 in connection with the Tashkent Case (CCE 49.14-1). During the search religious literature, tapes of a religious nature and also money, valuables and works of literature were confiscated.

The search was conducted on the pretext of locating a Zhiguli car stolen from a citizen.

Responding to the demand that the stolen articles and money be returned, the Procurator of Latvia referred the Darguzis couple to Tashkent. The Tashkent Procurator, Nepomnyashchy, promised to return some of the confiscated articles, but did not carry out his promise.

*

YESSENTUKI

North Caucasus

On 29 September 1978, the Adventist Valentina Zaporozhets (b. 1927) was arrested (CCE 51.15) in the city of Yessentuki (Stavropol Region). She was placed in the Pyatigorsk Investigations Prison.

Zaporozhets was charged under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code): complaints and letters to the USSR government regarding the violation of believers’ rights and freedoms were found at her home.

On 13 September her son, G. N. Zaporozhets (b. 1953), who is also a Believer, was arrested, ostensibly for hooliganism. He was detained for 18 days in a preliminary detention cell.

Her daughter. L. N. Zaporozhets (b. 1945), was constantly threatened that she would be arrested and her three small children taken away.

*

KIRGIZ SSR

On 7 December 1978 on the Kirov State Farm (Sokuluksky district, Kirgizia) the three families of M. A. Fogel, O. A. Fogel and M. D. Pauls were fined by decision of an administrative commission of the district soviet executive committee.

They were fined 30 roubles each. Two weeks later the same commission passed a decision to fine these families ten roubles per week. The reason given was that their children did not go to school on Saturdays.

*

On 4 July 1978 the military tribunal of an Army unit sentenced Alexander Mikhel, a member of the TFSDA Church, to three years in ordinary-regime camps under Article 249 (RSFSR Criminal Code).

Mikhel was sentenced for refusing to carry arms, work on Saturdays and swear the military oath. In December 1978 the appeal body, the military tribunal of the Zabaikal Military District (east Siberia), left the sentenced unchanged.

*

3. BAPTISTS

Largely based on material from the Council of ECB Prisoners’ Relatives Bulletin, (issues 58-60).

DZHAMBUL

From 13 to 21 June 1978 in the town of Dzhambul the trial took place of Baptists P. F. Panafidin, Ya. Ya. Fot and B. I. Bergen, arrested on 8 December 1977 (CCE 48.16-2; one surname contains an error). They were charged under two Articles of the Kazakh SSR Criminal Code: 170-1 (= Article 190-1, RSFSR Code) and 164 (“engaging in a forbidden trade”).

The charge was based on literature confiscated from the accused: information on the position of believers in the USSR, which fell under Article 170-1; the charge of duplication fell under Article 164.

*

During the trial the accused refused the lawyers engaged for them and petitioned that members of their community be allowed to conduct their defence. The court rejected this petition. The accused then declared that they would conduct their own defence. However, the court rejected this petition also and ruled that the appointed lawyers should take part in the trial.

By court verdict the community’s money found in the homes of the accused (more than 20,000 roubles) was confiscated. Panafidin was sentenced to three years, and Fot and Bergen to two years’ imprisonment. The court ordered that costs and lawyers’ fees be paid by the sentenced men.

*

DONETSK

On 13 October 1978 the Kiev district court in the city of Donetsk sentenced R. S. Goncharova (CCE 51.15) to two years under Article 138, pt. 2 (UkSSR Criminal Code: “violation of the laws separating Church from State and School from Church”).

The charge was based on evidence given by Naumova, Inspector of Minors’ Affairs. Goncharova had been arrested on 6 July.

*

Called up for military service in May 1978, S. Vasenkov refused to swear the oath for religious reasons (obeying the Commandment “Thou shalt not swear”). He was charged with avoidance of his military duty; his case is being examined by the Military Procuracy.

*

BRYANSK

On 2 July 1978 members of the registered Bryansk Baptist Church attempted to perform a water baptism.

Squads of police and vigilantes broke up the procession and gave the believers a cruel beating. The operation was directed by the following: Luzhetsky, chairman of the Volodarsky district soviet executive committee; his deputy V. I. Prokopenko; the Head of the State Motor-Vehicle Inspectorate, Captain Shepetko; and A. S. Makarov, Bryansk Regional representative of the Council for Religious Affairs.

More than 50 people were detained. Many were fined or sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment. On 17 October 1978, the chairman of the Church Council, P. L Kravchuk, charged with organizing the procession, was sentenced to two years in camps.

*

WEDDING DISRUPTED

On 17 September 1978 in Petromikhailovka village in Ukraine (Volnyansk District, Zaporozhe Region), the wedding of A. Katrich and D. Rotova took place.

During the wedding, conducted as a religious ceremony, Kirilyuk, deputy head of the Zaporozhe Region UVD, and N. Mirko, secretary of the district soviet executive committee, made an appearance. They drew up a report stating that a religious service was being held under the guise of a wedding.

The radio loudspeaker was then turned on at full volume in the school building. When two believers set off to the school to ask for the volume to be lowered, they were detained and sent to the district centre, where P. Stankevich was sentenced to 15 days in jail.

Stankevich was due to be married a week later. The authorities demanded written proof of the fact, but although this was supplied, his punishment was not revoked.

*

ZIMENS

In May 1978 Pyotr Ya. Zimens (CCE 41.2-4) returned to the town of Shchuchinsk in Kokchetav Region, after completing a three-year sentence of imprisonment.

On 7 May a prayer-meeting of the members of his community was arranged to celebrate Zimens’s homecoming, The house where the meeting was held was surrounded by police and vigilantes. Towards midnight Zimens was taken to the district soviet executive committee and threatened with a further sentence.

On 10 October Zimens was warned that if he did not find a job within a month he would be prosecuted for parasitism.

In his declaration addressed to Brezhnev P. Ya. Zimens writes that not one harm in Shchuchinsk will employ him (he was trained as an electrician) and asks for assistance in finding employment.

*

FINE

V. E. Antonyuk and A. S. Politko from the Kalininskaya cantonment (Krasnodar Region [Krai]) were fined 50 roubles each because their children were present at a prayer-meeting.

*

BURIAL

On 23 October 1978 Presbyter I. V. Nalivaiko was buried in Stepan Settlement (Rovno Region).

The administrative commission of the Rovno Region’s Sarny district soviet executive committee fined Kazimirets, present Presbyter of the Stepan Baptist church, 50 roubles for “leading the burial”.

*

“SWEDISH CASE”

The case of Baptists A. Semchenko, V. Strelnikov and A. Batylin (CCE 51.15) — a continuation of the ‘Swedish Case’ (CCE 47.4) — has been closed “in connection with a change of circumstances” (that is, under Article 6, RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure). Investigator Artyomova announced this.

The believers were returned some of the articles confiscated during the searches on 22 May 1978, tape-recorders and cassettes.

*

RUNOV

On 10 February 1979 the newspaper Gorodets Pravda (Gorodets town, Gorky Region, Russia) published an article by M. Morin entitled “Black Souls”.

The article, which took up an entire page, was about A. F. Runov, a Gorodets Baptist employed in a Consumer Service Combine. It charged Runov with openly preaching the Gospel and appealing to various bodies with complaints about persecution inflicted by the authorities, including his own forcible internment in psychiatric hospital, which had been imposed several times without reason.

On 15 February, in reply to the article, Runov wrote an appeal asserting that it contained a series of libellous statements, which, he demanded, should be withdrawn.

*

4. PENTECOSTALISTS

ROSTOV REGION (Russia)

In October 1978 a service was held at the home of L. Khridina (Bataisk town, Rostov Region). After breaking in, vigilantes and police-officers listed the names of all present and made them disperse. Khridina was fined 30 roubles.

*

In November 1978 policemen broke up a service being held at the home of A. Filipenko (Zhdanov town, Rostov Region). Four believers were fined.

*

VOLYN REGION (Ukraine)

On 5 January 1979 V. Poberezhnik (Didychi village) was fined 50 roubles for preaching during a prayer-time.

*

Pensioner A. Bulakevich (Olyka village) was fined 50 roubles, because “sectarians held prayer-meetings” in her home.

*

Collective-farm worker I. Chizh (Zalisoche village) was fined 50 roubles for engaging in ‘religious propaganda during working time’ (talking about God during a break).

*

KHERSON

In the city of Kherson (1979 pop., 319,000) at the beginning of February 1979, M. Fesenets, A. Sinyakin and A. Lazarenko were fined 50 roubles each by decision of the Administrative Commission for taking part in a prayer-meeting.

U. Rozhko (owner of the house) was fined 30 roubles, the same sum as her monthly pension.

*

LUTSK

In July 1978 F. E. Namonyuk (b. 1956) was arrested in the city of Lutsk (Volyn Region). In August he was convicted under Article 72 (UkSSR Criminal Code: “evasion of a routine summons to active military service”). At the trial it was noted that he had hindered the investigators in their work to establish the truth, and had not repented of his actions.

The sentence was two years’ imprisonment. He is serving it in Camp OR-318/76-3-30 (Rafalovka Station, Rovno Region). Pyotr Vins is also being held in this camp, CCE 51.9-2.

==================================

NOTES

1. See CCE 37.15 (1974) and CCE 47.17 [1] (1977) on Article 209 (“Parasitism”).
   ↩︎
2. On the Christian Seminar, see CCE 41.2-3, CCE 43.9 and CCE 46.8.
   ↩︎
3. In March 1979 (CCE 53.3-1) Shelkov, Lepshin and Spalin all received five years, Furlet three years, and Maslov a two-year suspended sentence.
   ↩︎
4. Lepshina’s letter was published in full in A Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR (CHR), New York, 1979, No. 33 (pp. 20-24).
   ↩︎

===========================