Prominent Russian punk rocker Fyodor Chistyakov says he has decided not to return from the United States, citing Russia’s new ban on the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A member of the religous denomination since the mid-1990s, Chistyakov told Novaya Gazeta in a telephone interview from New York published on July 31 that he “has no other choice” than to stay in the United States.
“I cannot openly follow my religion [in Russia] now. And that is a trauma itself even when I am not in jail, although incarcerations are taking place already,” he was quoted as saying.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-punk-chistyakov-defects-u-s-jehovah-witnesses/28650645.html