The Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg sent Ural human rights activist Alexei Sokolov, accused in a criminal case of repeated display of the Facebook logo, to pre-trial detention until September 1. This was reported by It's My City.
Sokolov was detained on July 5 in a criminal case for repeated demonstration of prohibited symbols (Part 1 of Article 282.4 of the Criminal Code). The resolution, quoted by Network Freedoms, states that in 2023, the lawyer, “under the guise of reliable messages aimed at discrediting the activities of the penal system,” published materials in the telegram channel “Human Rights Defenders of the Urals” with “knowingly unreliable social content.” significant information”, and also placed links to Facebook pages with a social network icon.
After his arrest, Sokolov wrote that the security forces beat him and did not tell him what he was accused of for more than six hours. The lawyer calls his case a custom case — according to the human rights activist, the department of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Sverdlovsk Region is behind his persecution. The team of the “Human Rights Defenders of the Urals” project, which includes Sokolov, is confident of this. Lawyers believe that their colleague’s case is “an attempt to cover up crimes committed by employees of the GUFSIN by the department itself.”
On July 8, Vecherniye Vedomosti published a video showing security forces throwing a prisoner to the floor, pulling down his underwear, and then shaving his head and beard. The publication claims that this was the video they were looking for in Sokolov's phone when he was detained. Vecherniye Vedomosti writes that the video was filmed in Yekaterinburg's IK-10 in January.
In the fall of 2023, Sokolov was brought to administrative responsibility for the Facebook logo — then he was arrested for five days under the article on demonstrating the symbols of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code). The reason for drawing up the protocol was the social network icon on the website of Human Rights Defenders of the Urals.
In 2010, Sokolov was sentenced to five years in a maximum security colony for robbery case (clause “b” of part 4 of article 162 of the Criminal Code). In 2011, he was released from prison on parole. Because of this case, Memorial then recognized the lawyer as a “prisoner of conscience” and called his persecution “retribution for human rights activities.”
Several years before his arrest in the robbery case, Sokolov made a documentary film “Torture Factory or pedagogical experience» about violations of the rights of prisoners in IK-2 in Yekaterinburg. In 2017, the former deputy director of this colony was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for organizing torture there.
A deuce again. The deputy head of IK-2 in the center of Yekaterinburg was convicted of organizing torture on video.