Political prisoner Rustam Khalikov has died in prison.

Rustam Khalikov, a 49-year-old Muslim from Chelyabinsk, has died in Correctional Colony No. 4 in Penza region, a city southeast of Moscow. The cause of death is unknown. This was reported by Memorial, citing the human rights project Free120.

Khalikov is believed to have died on 27 September. By that time, he had spent nearly seven years in prison. Over recent years, Khalikov had been held in Correctional Colony No. 4 in Penza region and had been seeking a transfer closer to home, either to Chelyabinsk region or Bashkortostan. He explained that his elderly parents were ill, his family was in a difficult financial situation, and it was hard for them to visit him. The Federal Penitentiary Service denied the transfer, and in May 2026 the court upheld this decision.

Khalikov was detained in November 2019. In May 2021, the Central District Military Court sentenced him and another defendant, Ilfat Galimov, to 12 years in prison. They were found guilty of participation in a terrorist organisation (Part 2, Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code) and of inciting another person to terrorist activity (Part 1.1, Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code). Later, the verdict was upheld on appeal and by the cassation court.

• In 2020, OVD-Info published an open letter from Khalikov’s mother, Anfisa Khalikova. She wrote that her son was interested in Islam, attended mosque, studied Arabic script, and read the Quran in the original. He was also curious about various Islamic movements, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, which he read about online.
• At the same time, Khalikov denied being a member of the organisation. One of the charges was related to a photograph from a 2014 meeting, where he was pictured alongside alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members. According to his mother, her son said he had stopped by after work at the request of an acquaintance and had ended up in the group photo by accident.
• Additionally, Khalikov was accused of allegedly telling another person about Hizb ut-Tahrir’s ideas and giving them literature. The witness in this episode appeared under a pseudonym and their details were kept secret. Anfisa Khalikova also stated that, during a search of their home, officers found books that had not been there before, and she believed the literature had been planted on her son.

The Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir has been designated a terrorist organisation in Russia. Its members are charged and sentenced to real prison terms solely on the grounds that they met in private homes, read religious literature, and recruited new members. According to the SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis and the project “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial,” the party has been designated as a terrorist organisation in Russia unjustly.