(Washington) – Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was arrested in the Russian city of Kazan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty announced on Wednesday, becoming the second American journalist to be detained in Russia in 2023 after Wall Street Journal correspondent Ivan Gershkovich.
Alsou Kurmasheva was charged with failing to declare herself as a “foreign agent”, a charge for which she faces up to five years in prison, the private media funded by the US Congress specified in a press release.
The journalist, who usually lives in Prague with her husband and children, was forced to go to Russia due to a “family emergency” on May 20, and was then temporarily detained on June 2 before her return flight to Kazan, RFE/RL explains.
After her American and Russian passports were confiscated, she found herself unable to leave Russia, before her indictment was finally announced on Wednesday.
In a statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists indicated that MI Kurmasheva was in a temporary detention center on Wednesday evening, according to reports by the official Tatar Inform news agency.
The authorities accuse the journalist of “deliberately carrying out a collection of military information about Russian activities via the Internet in order to transmit this information to foreign sources” in September 2022, as well as “leading media campaigns to discredit Russia.” Tatar-inform.
“Veteran journalist”
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russia to “immediately release” the journalist and “drop all charges” against her.
The organization said in a statement: “Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmasheva’s arrest is further evidence of Russia’s determination to stifle independent journalism.”
According to RFE/RL, Alsou “Kurmasheva is a seasoned journalist who has long covered ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, in Russia’s Volga and Ural region.”
“She must be released so she can return to her family immediately,” said Geoffrey Gidmin, interim president of RFE/RL.
A representative of the nongovernmental organization OVD-Info told the Committee to Protect Journalists that MI Kurmasheva will “most likely” be transferred to pretrial detention soon.
“She was arrested simply because she was an employee of Radio Liberty. In fact, today, every independent journalist in Russia risks the same thing.”I The Committee to Protect Journalists quoted Kurmasheva as saying on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, police searched the homes in Tatarstan in 2022 of seven Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists.
MI Kurmasheva is the second American journalist to be arrested in Russia in 2023, after Ivan Gershkovich.
This Wall Street Journal journalist was arrested by Russian security services during a report in Yekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, on March 29. He has since been detained in Lefortovo prison in Moscow.
MI Gershkovitch, who also previously worked for Agence France-Presse in Moscow, faces charges of espionage, a crime punishable by 20 years in prison, but he rejects these charges, as do Washington, his newspaper, his friends, and his family.
Russia has never proven its accusations or provided evidence publicly, and the entire proceeding has been classified. No date has been set for his trial yet.
Last week, a Moscow court rejected the journalist’s appeal against extending his pretrial detention.
In recent years, several American citizens have been arrested and sentenced to heavy sentences in Russia, and Washington has accused Moscow of wanting to exchange them for Russians detained in the United States.
