Yekaterinburg court jails human rights activist for ‘displaying extremist insignia’ — namely, Facebook logo

A court in Yekaterinburg has jailed the local human rights activist Alexey Sokolov, allegedly for “displaying extremist insignia” in public.

According to Sokolov’s attorney Roman Kachanov, charges were connected to a Facebook page link published by Sokolov on the website of his human rights organization, Human Rights Advocates of Ural. Since the link had the form of a button with a Facebook logo, the court deemed this to be an instance of extremist public expression.

The advocacy project Setevye Svobody (“Web Liberties”), run by the human rights NGO Agora, suggests that Sokolov’s arrest might be the local law enforcement authorities’ reaction to his advocacy for the rights of the incarcerated in the region. According to Setevye Svobody, more than 90 percent of cases with similar charges result in fines of up to 2,000 rubles (or about $20), which makes Sokolov’s jailing a clear outlier.

Russia blocked both Facebook and Instagram shortly after the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, declaring their parent company Meta an “extremist organization” on March 21, 2022. WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, has remained exempt from the ban.

In September 2023, however, Russian legislators once again raised the question of banning WhatsApp, in light of Meta’s announcement that a new feature would soon let users create channels on the app.