A Danish Jehovah's Witness, arrested in 2017 in Russia, was released Tuesday, May 24 from prison and must leave the country overnight, announced his movement, banned and repressed by the Russian authorities.
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“
Dennis Christensen has been released from prison.
For his faith, he spent a total of five years behind bars
,” the US-based organization said in a statement.
Dennis Christensen was sentenced to six years in prison in February 2019 by a court in Orel, 400 kilometers south of Moscow, for belonging to "
an extremist organization
".
He was arrested with other Jehovah's Witnesses in May 2017 in Orel during a religious service by the Russian security services (FSB), a few weeks after the banning of this organization in Russia.
His conviction caused outrage in Denmark and the European Union called for his release.
He must now leave Russia overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, his movement said.
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About 130 people gathered in front of his prison in Lgov, in the Kursk region (west), to welcome him after his release, according to Jehovah's Witnesses.
In vain, the person concerned having been transferred immediately to Moscow.
A movement founded in the 1870s in the United States by Charles Russel, Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves to be the only ones to restore Christianity to its origins.
They are regularly accused of sectarian aberrations for their rigorous precepts.
