According to her employer and a journalist monitoring group, a Russian-American journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was jailed in Russia and accused of failing to register as a foreign agent. Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir station, “needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately,” RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said in a statement. “Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children,” Gedmin said in a statement.
She is the second American journalist detained by Russia in recent months. Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, has been jailed since March on suspicion of spying. Kurmasheva was being kept overnight at a temporary detention camp, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, citing state broadcaster Tatar-Inform. Kurmasheva would “most likely” be sent to pre-trial prison, according to a spokesman of the Russian human-rights news website OVD-Info. Kurmasheva lives in Prague, Czech Republic, but came to Russia on May 20 for a family emergency, according to the CPJ.
Kurmasheva’s arrest comes seven months after Gershkovich, the first Western journalist imprisoned on spy allegations in Russia
According to RFE/RFL, she was detained briefly at the Kazan airport on June 2 before her return flight, where both her US and Russian passports were taken and she was penalized for failing to register her American passport with Russian officials. According to RFE/RFL, Kurmasheva has covered ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, particularly efforts to preserve the Tatar language, even as Russian authorities “have exerted increased pressure on Tatars in recent years.” She was awaiting the return of her passports when the new charge was issued, according to the CPJ, and if convicted, she faces up to five years in prison.
The allegations “deeply concerned” the organization. Russian authorities must “release her immediately and drop all charges against her,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said. “Journalism is not a crime and Kurmasheva’s detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting.” “Alsu was detained simply because she is an employee of Radio Liberty. In fact, now an independent journalist in Russia risks the same thing,” CPJ cited a colleague of Kurmasheva’s as saying, on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Kurmasheva’s arrest comes seven months after Gershkovich, the first Western journalist imprisoned on spy allegations in Russia since the Soviet era. The Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent, his employer, and the US government have all denied the charges of spying. Russia has not made public any evidence of the claims leveled against Gershkovich. A Moscow court earlier this month denied his detention petition and ordered him to be kept until the end of November. Despite the fact that many Western journalists fled Russia once the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, the American, who formerly worked for AFP, remained to report from the nation. He was imprisoned in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.