A Russian court has sentenced four Jehovah's Witnesses adherents to prison terms of between three-and-a-half and seven years, the latest step in Moscow's crackdown on an organisation it deems dangerous, the religious group said late on Monday.
Russia's supreme court in 2017 banned the group under a law criminalising organisations designated "extremist". Since that ruling, raids on Jehovah's Witnesses' homes and meeting places have become a regular occurrence.
The district court of Birobidzhan, in Russia's Far East, on Monday found the four men guilty of violating laws that regulate extremist organisations, including by organising "an illegal religious meeting" aimed at spreading "prohibited" religious doctrines among the local population, according to a statement from the court's press service.
