The head of the Uzbek community association, who was convicted over a social media post about the military, has been hospitalised directly from the courthouse.

The head of the Uzbek community group “Vatandosh,” Usman Baratov, who had previously been convicted over an image about participants in the war, was taken by ambulance from the court building. This was reported by the Civil Control project.

Since April 2025, the Valday District Court in Novgorod Region has been hearing a second criminal case against Usmanov, under the article on disorganising the work of a penal colony (Part 2, Article 321 of the Criminal Code). The reason was a statement from a unit supervisor at Penal Colony No. 4 in Novgorod Region, who alleged that during a conversation through the window of the punishment cell, Baratov took his video recorder and threw it at his chest, causing pain. Baratov denies the accusations.

A Civil Control observer who attended the hearing reported that Baratov was in very poor health, moving by holding on to the wall with both hands and suffering from severe shortness of breath. He could barely stand up from the bench in the cage and struggled to hand documents to his lawyer.

“According to Baratov, he has arrhythmia and doctors also suspect pleurisy. In addition, his scrotum is swollen ‘to the size of a human head,’ and he has difficulty urinating. At the start of the hearing, Baratov asked the judge to call an ambulance and to allow him to eat, since, he said, he was not given a dry ration before the trip,” wrote Civil Control.

The judge eventually announced a recess, during which an ambulance arrived. The doctors examined Baratov and took him, under escort, to a civilian hospital. A few hours later, the judge’s assistant reported that Baratov would not be brought back from hospital.

In August 2024, a court in Moscow Region sentenced Baratov to four years in a general regime colony in a case of inciting hatred or enmity (para “v” part 2, article 282 of the Criminal Code). The sentence was later reduced to three years and two months in an open prison (colony-settlement). The case was opened on the orders of Investigative Committee chair Alexander Bastrykin. According to the press service, pro-military bloggers in Russia appealed to Bastrykin, requesting “a response to the insulting statements” the man made about Russian soldiers. The trigger for the prosecution was a meme with roosters on Odnoklassniki.

According to investigators, in December, Baratov published a news item about rising egg prices in Russia with an image and the text: “You get nothing, not eggs! Bring the roosters back from the front.” Based on a forensic psychological and linguistic examination, the prosecution concluded that the post demeaned a group on social grounds—citizens of the Russian Federation and participants in the war in Ukraine.

Baratov claimed his page had been hacked, and the post was made by someone else. He also restricted access to his page, making it visible only to friends. On 19 January 2024, he was sent to a pre-trial detention centre.

9 September: Usman Baratov was hospitalised in the infectious diseases ward of Valday Multidisciplinary Medical Centre, according to his support group.

Doctors diagnosed him with community-acquired pneumonia, lung atelectasis, chronic heart failure, decompensation, bilateral hydrothorax, anasarca (oedematous syndrome), and ascites.

He is expected to remain on sick leave until 16 September.