A political prisoner from Dagestan complained of frequent placement in solitary confinement

Dagestani activist and political prisoner Ulker Gashimova, serving her sentence in Kostroma Penal Colony No. 3, stated that she spent the entire month of October 2025 in solitary confinement.

"I'm often in solitary confinement. They gave me another 15 days. I've been in solitary confinement all of October, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with myself," she wrote in her letter.

In 2024, Ulker Gashimova was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for comments on a Telegram channel against the Russian authorities and in support of Ukraine. She was accused of publicly calling for terrorist and extremist activity. The independent human rights project "Memorial" recognized her as a political prisoner.

Initially, in May 2023, a Moscow court sentenced Gashimova to 15 days of arrest for disobeying a government official's order when crossing the state border. She was attempting to fly from Sheremetyevo Airport to Belgrade to request political asylum in the Netherlands during her layover. After her arrest, she was flown to Dagestan. Gashimova was accused of posting several comments in Telegram chats. In late December 2022, according to investigators, she wrote the phrases "military registration and enlistment offices need to be blown up" and "the same applies to the police prosecutor's office administration" in the "Belgorod-Apodonnya" channel. Investigators classified these posts as public calls for terrorism.

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