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Yekaterinburg human rights defender Alexey Sokolov is on trial for treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code) over reports of human rights violations in Russian detention centres and penal colonies that he sent to the Norwegian Helsinki Committee in 2023–2024. This was reported by Kommersant-Ural, citing the indictment.
According to investigators, Sokolov has been cooperating with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee since 2022. The rights defender developed a project to support seriously ill prisoners and received a grant of 30,000 dollars (US$30,000) for it. As part of the project, he was to collect information about violations of prisoners’ rights, prepare appeals to state agencies and courts, and send reports to the Norwegian organisation. In July 2025, the committee was declared an “undesirable organisation” in Russia.
The investigation claims that Sokolov provided false information contradicting the official data of the Federal Penitentiary Service. According to the prosecution, these reports were used to intensify sanctions pressure on Russia and to “create an image of Russia as a country in which human rights are systematically violated.” In case materials, the committee is called “an ideological opponent of Russia on the international stage.”
Sokolov did not plead guilty but confirmed his cooperation with the committee. He had previously described his prosecution as revenge from the regional branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service for his human rights work.
The case was sent to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court (held in Yekaterinburg, a major city in the Urals). The first hearing was set for 9 November, but it was postponed to 24 November with no explanation given. The trial is being held behind closed doors.
In July 2026, Sokolov was sentenced to two years of forced labour in a case concerning repeated demonstration of “extremist” symbols (part 1 of article 282.4 of the Criminal Code) over the Facebook logo shown in posts containing links to the social network on the “Urals Human Rights Defenders” Telegram channel. The rights defender himself maintained that the links were added by officers.