Communicated on 4 September 2017
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 39417/17
Dennis Ole CHRISTENSEN
against Russia
lodged on 2 June 2017
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Dennis Ole Christensen, is a Danish national, who was born in 1972 and lives in Orel. He is represented before the Court by Mr P. Muzny, a lawyer practising in Prévessin-Moens, France.
The applicant and his wife are Jehovah’s Witnesses living in Orel.
On 25 May 2017 local police and the Federal Security Service (FSB) officers carried out a search in their flat and arrested the applicant on the charges of continuing the activities of a religious community – the Orel local religious organisation of Jehovah’s Witnesses – which had been liquidated by a judicial decision on account of its extremist activities, an offence under Article 282-2 § 1 of the Criminal Code. Reference was made to the Orel Regional Court’s judgment of 14 June 2016 by which the Orel organisation of Jehovah’s Witnesses had been banned. The applicant was taken to the FSB Investigative Department.
On the following day the Sovetskiy District Court in Orel, referring to the gravity of the charges against the applicant and his foreign nationality, authorised his pre-trial detention.
The applicant appealed, invoking, in particular, his right to freedom of religion. On 21 June 2017 the Orel Regional Court upheld the detention order in a summary fashion, without addressing the applicant’s grounds of appeal.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complained under Article 9 of the Convention, taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14, that his arrest accompanied by the risk of criminal conviction constituted an unlawful, unjustified and disproportionate interference with his right to manifest his religion in community with others and that he has been subjected to a discriminatory treatment on account of his faith.
The applicant also complained under Article 5 of the Convention that the domestic courts failed to provide relevant and sufficient reasons for his detention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was there a violation of Article 9 of the Convention, taken on its own or in conjunction with Article 14, on account of the applicant’s arrest and detention?
2. Was the applicant’s detention based on “relevant and sufficient” reason as required by Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova [GC], no. 23755/07, §§ 92-102, ECHR 2016 (extracts))?
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