RUSSIA: A resident of Pyatigorsk convicted of involvement in the Falun Gong movement

Caucasian Knot (28.11.2024) – The court in Pyatigorsk sentenced a local resident to two years in prison for organizing the activities of the religious movement “Friends of Falun Gong”*.

The religious movement “Falun Gong”* was founded by Li Hongzhi in the early 90s in China, in 1999 the country’s government banned school teaching, its leader moved to the United States. Hongzhi’s book “Rzhuan Falun”, the brochure “Report on the verification of allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong followers* in China” and the information sheet “Falun Dafa in the world” “World torch relay in the protection of human rights” in Russia are included in the all-Russian list of materials recognized by the court as extremist. The list is published in the “Reference” section on the “Caucasian node”.

According to the press service of the FSB Department in the Stavropol Territory, the court in Pyatigorsk found a local resident guilty of organizing the activities of a religious movement.

“The defendant was found guilty of organizing the activities of a foreign or international non-governmental organization, against which a decision was made to be declared undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation and sentenced to two years in a general regime colony,” Interfax said today.

According to the investigation, a resident of Pyatigorsk in 2020-2024 conducted spiritual and health-improving practices, meetings and meetings, involving new participants, sold products and literature of undesirable organizations.

There were no comments from the representatives of the convict. The name of the convict is not given in the release.

“Caucasian Knot” also wrote that on June 9 it became known that the court of Pyatigorsk received a criminal case against Oksana Shchetkina. According to OVD-Info, she was accused of participating in the activities of one of the Falun Gong organizations* – an undesirable organization (part 1 of Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), but then she was charged with organizing the activities of an undesirable organization (part 3 of Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Read “Caucasian Node” in Telegram without installing VPN and use the CENO browser to bypass blocks. Install our mobile application for Android and IOS. Through VPN, you can continue reading “Caucasian Node” on the website, as usual, and in the social network X (former Twitter). Watch the video of “Caucasian Node” on YouTube and stay in touch on social networks “VKontakte” and “Odnoklassniki”. Send messages to WhatsApp** to +49 157 72317856, to Telegram – to the same number or write @Caucasian_Knot.

Footnote

* seven foreign organizations associated with Falun Gong are recognized by the Prosecutor General’s Office as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation.

** entered in the register of foreign agents of the Ministry of Justice.

*** Meta’s activities (owning Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) are prohibited in Russia.

Further reading about FORB in Russia on HRWF website