(Moscow) The pre-trial detention of Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was extended Friday until August 5 by a court in the Russian city of Kazan, where she is incarcerated, a spokesperson for the judicial body.
This journalist from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), aged 47, was arrested in Russia in October 2023 for not having registered as a “foreign agent”, an infamous term which imposes heavy administrative constraints on the persons or entities concerned.
According to her media, she is also accused of spreading “false information” about the Russian army, punishable by 15 years in prison, accusations deemed “unfounded” by RFE/RL.
On Friday, his “pre-trial detention was extended until August 5”, during a “closed hearing”, Rumia Mubarakzanova, the spokesperson for the Sovetsky court in Kazan, the capital, told AFP by telephone. of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan.
Alsu Kurmasheva “is detained for her uncompromising commitment to telling the truth to the Russian people, regardless of whether this truth makes the Kremlin uncomfortable,” a spokesperson for the Russian Federation told AFP on Friday. United States Embassy in Moscow, Daniel Kanigan, shortly before the hearing.
“Journalism is not a crime,” he stressed.
“We continue to call on Russia to release journalists and prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned and are being unjustifiably detained in Russia,” Kanigan added.
PHOTO ASSOCIATED PRESS
Alsu Kurmasheva listens to her lawyer’s instructions during her hearing.
The journalist, who resided in Prague before her arrest with her husband and two teenage daughters, had gone to Russia to visit her sick mother on May 20, 2023 but was unable to leave, her American and Russian passports having been confiscated. confiscated.
According to Russian media, the accusation of disseminating “false information” brought against her is linked to her participation in the publication of a book of testimonies of Russians opposed to the offensive in Ukraine.
NGOs believe that the detention of Alsu Kurmasheva constitutes a new stage in the Russian campaign against independent media, which has intensified since the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington also accuses Moscow of carrying out unjustified arrests of American citizens in order to exchange them for Russians detained in the West.
Alsu Kurmasheva, who joined RFE/RL in 1998, works for her service in the Tatar and Bashkir languages, covering these ethnic minorities in Russia inhabiting in particular Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, the Volga and the Ural regions.
Another American journalist detained in Russia, Evan Gershkovich, was arrested in March 2023 while reporting and has since been detained in Moscow on espionage charges that he denies. At the end of March, his pre-trial detention was extended until June 30.