Administrator of ‘Free Lapland’ Telegram channel sentenced to fifteen years

Rafael Mamedov, a student from Murmansk who administered the Telegram channel ‘Free Lapland’, has been sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, with the first three years to be served in prison and the remainder in a strict-regime penal colony. The sentence was announced by his support group.

The verdict was handed down on 27 May by the Northern Fleet Military District Court. Rafael Mamedov was convicted of participation in a terrorist organisation under Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code, and of treason under Article 275.

Russia’s Supreme Court has designated ‘Free Lapland’ as a structural subdivision of the Forum of Free States of Post-Russia, which was declared a terrorist organisation in 2024. The prosecution also alleged that Rafael Mamedov was a member of a second subdivision of the Forum — the Indigenous Peoples Coalition Alliance. His alleged participation in a terrorist organisation included, among other things, submitting two texts — ‘Regional Conflicts’ and ‘Strategies of Decolonisation’ — for publication on the Alliance’s website. He was subsequently charged with treason on the basis of the same texts.

Rafael Mamedov was detained on 15 May 2025. FSB officers took him from a psychiatric clinic, where he had been admitted following an act of self-harm. He later made suicide attempts both in pre-trial detention and in transit. According to his family, antidepressants prescribed by his doctor are issued irregularly.

Rafael Mammadov is 23 years old. At the time of his arrest, he was a third-year student of digital sociology at Murmansk Arctic University.