Five years of isolation: Yakut shaman Alexander Gabyshev's forced treatment has been extended for another six months.
The Yakutsk City Court has ruled to extend Alexander Gabyshev's involuntary psychiatric hospitalization until at least December 18, according to the shaman's lawyer, Alexei Pryanishnikov. The defense notes that this time, the decision was made by the same people who made it five years ago, when Gabyshev was first sent to a medical facility with intensive supervision: Judge Maxim Gorokhov and Prosecutor Maria Chegodaeva.
Refusal of expert examination and the defense's position
According to lawyer Alexei Pryanishnikov, during the trial, Judge Gorokhov denied the defense's motion to order an independent forensic examination at the V. P. Serbsky National Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Addiction. The defense emphasized that Alexander Gabyshev himself is feeling well and is determined to continue his fight for his freedom.
For five and a half years, Gabyshev was held in various specialized hospitals. Throughout this time, his condition was assessed by medical professionals as stable. The situation changed after his transfer to Yakutsk in September 2025, when local psychiatrists suddenly declared his health had deteriorated and he was a "public danger."
The doctors' absurd arguments and the context of the persecution
The shaman's defense considers the Yakut doctors' new findings completely absurd. In the official medical examination report, the doctors cited his "tendency toward solitude" and alleged hereditary factors, stemming from a traumatic brain injury suffered by Alexander's uncle, as the key reasons for Gabyshev's "public danger."
Alexander Gabyshev gained widespread notoriety in 2019 when he organized a walking trek from Yakutia to Moscow with the goal of "ousting Putin." Between 2019 and 2021, he was detained three times, then accused of extremism and forcibly sent for treatment. In June 2020, the human rights organization Memorial officially recognized Alexander Gabyshev as a political prisoner.
