Russian court jails woman, son in Jehovah’s Witness crackdown – By Darryl Coote (UPI) / Feb 24 2021
Feb. 24 (UPI) — A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a 69-year-old mother to jail for her religious beliefs, becoming the first woman jailed amid the Kremlin’s continued crackdown on Jehovah’s Witnesses, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said.
“Today, Valentina Baranovskaya, an elderly woman in poor health, became the first female Jehovah’s Witness sentenced to prison in Russia today,” Gary L. Bauer, the USCIRF commission, said Wednesday in a statement. “This marks a new low in Russia’s brutal campaign against religious freedom.”
Baranovskaya and her son Roman Baranovskiy, 46, were sentenced to two years and six years, respectively, the Christian denomination said.
The pair were separately charged as extremists for organizing activities of a banned organization as the religion was ordered to shut down in Russia by its Supreme Court in 2017.
