Ural human rights defender Alexei Sokolov was placed in a mental hospital
In Yekaterinburg, human rights activist and lawyer Alexei Sokolov, accused under the criminal article of displaying extremist symbols, was placed in a psychiatric hospital. This is reported by URA.RU.
Sokolov’s son stated in a conversation with journalists that his father was placed in the hospital for a forensic psychiatric examination. He will stay at the institution for at least two weeks. The investigator asked for an examination.
Sokolov was detained in July 2024 after a search of his apartment. The human rights defender is accused of displaying extremist symbols due to his publication in 2020-2021 of links to Facebook with the logo of the social network in the Telegram channel “Human Rights Defenders of the Urals”. According to the investigation, Sokolov also posted “unverifiable facts about the validity of the Sverdlovsk GUFSIN” on social networks.
Sokolov believes that the case was fabricated by the local FSIN because of his human rights activities. In October of last year, the human rights defender was arrested for five days in an administrative case for publishing the logo of the Facebook social network on the Internet.
- Alexey Sokolov specializes in protecting the rights of prisoners. He also served time in the colony. In 2009, the human rights defender was detained on charges of robbery committed at the Uralneft enterprise in 2001. The court sentenced him to five years of imprisonment. The case was linked to Sokolov’s professional activities. In particular, in 2007 he shot the film “Factory of torture or pedagogical experience” about the mockery of prisoners, and a year later he engaged in a public investigation of the murders of prisoners during a riot in the colony in Kopeysk. The human rights defender did not plead guilty in the criminal case, stating that it was completely falsified.
- At the end of March 2022, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow recognized Meta as an extremist organization and blocked its Facebook and Instagram accounts. The authorities have repeatedly stated that Russian users of these social networks will not be held responsible, despite the status of the Meta company. At the same time, in September 2022, the Kuntsev inter-district prosecutor’s office handed blogger Veronika Loginova a warning about the illegality of extremist activities in connection with publications on Instagram.
