Additional Name(s): Andrey Andreyevich Kapatsyna, Андрея Капацыну

Gender: Male

Perpetrator: Russia

Religion or Belief: Christian – Protestant

Reports of Torture: No

Reports of Medical Neglect: No

Appeal: Rejected

Sentence: 2 Years, 10 Months' Imprisonment

Current Status: Not Released

Religious Leader: No

Most Recent Type of Abuse: Imprisonment

Reason for Persecution: Conscientious Objection

Nature of Charges: Refusing & Absconding Military Service

Andrey Kapatsyna

Extra Bio Info:

Andrey Kapatsyna is imprisoned for conscientious objection.

On September 23, 2022, Kapatsyna was sent to a military unit in Vladivostok after he received a military summons to support Russia's war effort in Ukraine. 

On October 20, 2022, Kapatsyna refused to fulfill his superior's orders to deploy to Ukraine citing his religious beliefs.

On June 29, 2023, the Vladivostok Garrison Military Court sentenced Kapatsyna to two years and 10 months in prison for "failure by a subordinate to comply with an order from a superior...during a period of martial law, in wartime, or in conditions of an armed conflict or hostilities, as well as refusal to participate in military or hostilities" (Art. 332-2.1 RCC).

On August 17, 2023, the Pacific Fleet Military Court upheld Kapatsyna's sentence.

Kapatsyna was transferred to the Magadan region to serve his sentence.

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Additional Name(s): Костянтин Максимов

Gender: Male

Perpetrator: Russia

Religion or Belief: Christian – Orthodox

Date of Detainment: May/16/2023

Current Status: Not Released

Religious Leader: Yes

Most Recent Type of Abuse: Disappeared

Reason for Persecution: Religious Activity Religious Belief Religious Expression Religious Figure & Religious Leadership Role

Nature of Charges: Espionage

Kostiantyn Maksimov

Extra Bio Info:

Kostiantyn Maksimov is detained for his religious belief.

On May 16, 2023, Russian forces in Russian-occupied Chongar, Ukraine, detained Maksimov, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as he was trying to cross into Russian-occupied Crimea. The head of the Russian Religious Organizations Department at the Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration's Social and Political Communications and Information Policy Department told Forum 18 that Maksimov had not supported the integration of the Berdyansk Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church into the Russian Orthodox Church, which had occurred days before his detainment.

In April 2024, the Russian-installed Prosecutor's Office of the Zaporizhzhia Region announced that Maksimov had been indicted for espionage (Art. 276 RCC) after it accused him of providing the location of Russian air defense systems to Ukrainian Security Services.

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Additional Name(s): 热依拉·达吾提, راھىلە داۋۇت

Gender: Female

Perpetrator: China

Ethnic Group: Uyghur

Religion or Belief: Unspecified

Reports of Torture: No

Reports of Medical Neglect: No

Sentence: Life Imprisonment

Date of Detainment: December//2017

Current Status: Not Released

Religious Leader: No

Most Recent Type of Abuse: Imprisonment

Reason for Persecution: Ethnoreligious Identity Religious Scholarship

Nature of Charges: Separatism

Rahile Dawut

Extra Bio Info:

Rahile Dawut is detained for her ethnoreligious identity and scholarship. 

In December 2017, authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) detained Dawut, Uyghur ethnographer and professor, and sent her to a detention facility. Dawut's detention came amid mass detentions of largely Muslim ethnic minorities in XUAR in 2017 and 2018.

In 2020, a court reportedly sentenced Dawut to life in prison for "splitting the state" in relation to her efforts to preserve Uyghur culture. 

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