Background

In Barsuk and Gyl v Ukraine [2026] ECHR 145, the applicants, two female Jehovah’s Witnesses, had been attacked and beaten up by one S when they were preaching door-to-door and distributing religious literature in 2017 [1-8]. S was subsequently arrested and charged with “infliction of minor injuries which caused short-term damage to health” and “infliction of injuries of medium severity” under the Criminal Code [10].

The domestic proceedings

S admitted at his trial that he had pushed and grabbed them. He was an Orthodox Christian and regarded the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ doctrines as false and dangerous, but he had not acted out of religious hatred but because he had previously seen a television news programme about fraudsters visiting people’s houses [16]. Continue reading →