The last word of the defendant Vladimir Bukin in Tynda

 RUSSIA 

The last word of the defendant Vladimir Bukin in Tynda

on September 8, 2022.

Amur region

From the courtroom

Speaking in court, the believer stressed the absurdity of the persecution he faced for his faith: "Biblical hope is dear to me. And now I have to be beaten with a baton of the law for this, which says "Article 282.2"? Beat with a baton of the law for being a Jehovah's Witness?"

Transcript of the court session in the Tyndinsky district Court of the Amur region dated 09/08/2022 in the case 1-9/2022 (1-131/2021) on charges of Bukin Vladimir Valeryevich and others. of committing a crime under Parts 1 and 1.1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Vladimir V. Bukin: Today I stand before a respected court, and it is a great honor for me! Honor, because I will testify to my love for God. I love Jehovah God and I love his people! Can I renounce and betray this love? No.

Heavenly Father has done so much good for me. He gave me a life on a beautiful planet, loving parents, a wonderful wife and millions of friends around the world. He gave his dear Son to die so that I and all of us could enjoy life on paradise forever, having perfect health. In the Bible, in the Gospel of John 3:16 it is written: "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (Synodal translation). And now my heavenly Father is here to support me in this special hour.

Therefore, my answer is that I will love Jehovah God always and with all my heart. Why? Because it is fair to respond with love to love, and it is also the first commandment of Christianity. In Matthew 22:37, 38, Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind: this is the first and greatest commandment."

So, whether I am standing in front of respectable people, as I am now, or I am alone with myself, it is unacceptable for me to renounce a loving and kind heavenly Father. I don't want to hurt him and I can't. For example, how will a father feel who loves his child, but he renounces him and says: "I don't want to know you, you're not my father!" Moreover, the child does this not because the father is bad, but because someone slandered his father, threatened and ordered him to refuse from him. What, then, can our heavenly Father feel when they try to take away his children, and call our relationship with him extremism?

And in this situation, I personally worry not so much for myself as for people's disrespect for their Creator. After all, the state in which I was born and raised officially allowed the worship of Jehovah's Witnesses, allowed tens of thousands of people, including me, to get acquainted with the Bible, to know and love God and his son Jesus Christ, to find hundreds of friends in the Christian congregation and love them with all my heart, to closely connect my life with them. And I am very grateful to the state authorities for this period of real religious freedom.

And now, overnight, I have to give up all this because someone seems to be trying to eradicate the worship of Jehovah in Russia? But trying to do this is like blowing on a dandelion: the harder you blow, the further the seeds fly. Everything that anyone tries to do against Jehovah and his people, God will turn exactly the opposite. It has happened more than once. Adolf Hitler, for example, said of Jehovah's Witnesses: "I will destroy [Jehovah's Witnesses] in Germany." Indeed, as historian Detlef Garbe wrote, "most prisoners of conscience convicted by military courts ... in the Third Reich were Jehovah's Witnesses."

I will briefly tell you about Gerhard Steinaker, a 19-year-old Austrian. Just a few days after the outbreak of World War II, the Nazis arrested him for refusing to serve in the German army, and in November 1939 he was sentenced to death. While in prison, he wrote: "All I want is to glorify God, keep his commandments, and ask him to accept us into his kingdom, where eternal life and peace await us." On March 30, 1940, Gerhard was executed. The inscription on his grave reads: "He died glorifying God."

Yes, hundreds of my brothers and sisters died at the hands of the Nazis because they did not take up arms, refused to work for the army and did not say "Heil Hitler", because they believed that salvation belongs not to any man, but to God. In Nazi Germany, Jehovah's Witnesses were slanderously called Communist terrorists or a Jewish-American sect closely associated with the Communists.

But in fact, our "fault" is only that we want to glorify God and keep his commandments. For this very reason, Jehovah's Witnesses are always and in any country absolutely politically neutral and do not take up arms. That is why, in one country or another of the world, we face slander and persecution. The Gospel of John 15:20 records the words of Jesus Christ: "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours."

And what can you say about me and my friends? We also want to glorify God and keep his commandments. What is the extremism here? In the 1950s, the Soviet Union sent thousands of my co-religionists to Siberia "for eternal settlement." Thousands of believers have passed through prisons and camps. And how many dirty slanders were poured out against the holy name of God! For what?

And so, we are again faced with what Jesus called "they will persecute you too." Is this fair from the point of view of God, and from the point of view of freedom of conscience and religion? In fact, the persecution that we are witnessing is again aimed only at breaking people's faith.

As of June 15, 2022, 1,758 searches took place in Russia, 454 Jehovah's Witnesses were included in the list of extremists of Rosfinmonitoring, 26 ended up in a colony, 65 in a pre—trial detention center, and a total of 337 believers have already been imprisoned, and all under Article 282 [of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation]. It would seem that my friends and I have little choice: either make a deal with our conscience and stop doing what is right in the eyes of God, or stand here in court and — paradoxically — answer to the law for the works of our faith. But in fact, like every person living on earth, I can make a different choice: to love Jehovah and the people he created, to love the infinitely wise Bible and have the hope of living forever on paradise land!

And extremism — what is it? I am far from it, and even thinking about it is unpleasant. I am accused of resuming the activities of the MRO, but what is the MRO of Jehovah's Witnesses? Since 2017, these are dead legal souls who live only in the imagination of the investigating authorities and the prosecution, but in reality they no longer exist. Therefore, if I am found guilty, then I am guilty of loving God, his holy name and his word of the Bible, and not of resuming the activity of something that has not existed in nature since 2017.

But what is more important in what is happening here is how our Creator will feel if worshipping him is assessed as the resumption of the activities of an extremist organization. How will the one who is rightly spoken of in the Bible feel: "God is love" or "He is kind and ready to forgive", as well as: "Be holy because I am holy"? If God is pure and holy, loving, kind and merciful, then so is his worship. Calling the worship of a holy and good God extremism is completely absurd and disrespectful, and I will never agree with that. And will our God agree with this? […]

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Happy are the poor in spirit." In other words, these are people who are aware of their spiritual needs, eager to know God. Why are they happy? "Because they will be saturated" — that is, they will find knowledge about God. And I have satisfied this spiritual hunger here in the Christian congregation.

The videos clearly show that it is the Bible that we study and discuss. Such discussions help to get to know God and his righteous norms better and live in harmony with them. Knowledge of biblical truths and God's help helped me quit smoking and using drugs, stop lying, swearing and drinking, taught me to respect my parents, love my wife, show respect for government authorities and for each individual person. There is no more hatred and anger in my heart. For example, in all these years, I have never, either out loud or in my heart, uttered a bad word either towards the FSB, the prosecutor's office or the court, or towards the Russian government. And I don't consider them my enemies. I still respect those who have power over me. I do not think of any other way of life for myself and I am sure that if there is anything else that needs to change for the better, then God will show it to me through the Bible and help me.

In addition to the knowledge of God himself, the Bible gave me the hope of living forever on a land cleansed of evil. It says that the whole planet will become a heavenly place of residence for people, as the Creator originally intended. This is his holy will for the earth. As you know, Jesus taught his followers to pray: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It means that God's will will be done on earth! The prophecy is recorded in Psalm 36:11: "But the meek will inherit the earth and enjoy the multitude of the world." This biblical hope is dear to me. And now I have to be beaten for this with the baton of the law, which says "article 282.2"? To beat with the baton of the law because I am a Jehovah's Witness, that is, I bear the name of God, whom Jesus taught to pray for in the Gospel of Matthew 6:9: "Hallowed be thy name"? Millions of Christians around the world and in Russia pray precisely for the name of God to be respected. And his name, according to the Bible, is Jehovah. Beat me for trying to live by the good standards of the Bible?

No, I don't elevate myself above others. There are a lot of good people on earth who do good, and your work is aimed at this. It's just that I try to live this way too, because that's what the Word of God teaches me.

Dear Court, in conclusion, I want to emphasize that I love the country in which I was born and grew up, and sincerely wish all those living in it peace and prosperity. I have never taken and will not take actions against the security of Russia or to undermine the state system. Your Honor, I consider myself innocent of what I am accused of here, and I hope for your understanding.

Summary of the case

Region:

Amur region

Locality:

Tynda

What is suspected:

According to the investigation, "they organized meetings of followers religious organizations"

Criminal case number:

11907100001000076

Case initiated:

November 11, 2019

Current stage of the case:

The verdict has entered into force

Investigating:

The Federal Security Service of Russia for the Amur region

Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation:

282.2 (1), 282.2 (1.1)

The number of the case in court:

1-45/2023 (1-9/2022; 1-131/2021)

The Court of First Instance:

Tyndinsky District Court of the Amur region

Judge of the Court of First instance:

Valentina Brikova