(Prague) Russian justice announced on Friday that it had extended until February 5 the detention of Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, arrested in October and accused of not having registered as a “foreign agent” .
“The Kazan court extended the arrest of Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva until February 5, 2024,” her employer, the Prague-based media Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), wrote on Telegram .
The court then confirmed this information to AFP.
She is one of two American reporters to have been arrested in Russia this year, along with Evan Gershkovich, Wall Street Journal.
The status of “foreign agent”, which recalls the Soviet term “enemy of the people”, imposes administrative constraints and very heavy financial control on the persons or entities concerned.
Alsu Kurmasheva, whose media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is funded by the US Congress, was arrested in October in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan.
The journalist, who usually lives in Prague with her husband and two teenage daughters, had gone to Russia for a “family emergency” on May 20, but was unable to leave, her American and Russian passports having been confiscated.
A Russian court kept him in detention at the end of October and rejected his appeal. Alsu Kurmasheva faces up to five years in prison.
On Thursday, RFE/RL interim president Jeffrey Gedmin denounced an “unjust and politically motivated imprisonment,” again calling for his release.
“Political prisoner”
Rights groups say his detention is yet another example of Russia’s campaign against independent media, which has intensified since Russia’s offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
Some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most respected critics are among these “foreign agents”, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner and editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov.
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.
RFE/RL was founded during the Cold War to counter Soviet propaganda in the Eastern Bloc. It still broadcasts content in a multitude of languages in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes.
For her husband, Pavel Butorin, the journalist is a “political prisoner”.
“I think Alsu was taken hostage because she is an American citizen and because she is a journalist for Radio Free Europe,” he told AFP at the end of November.
The other American journalist arrested, Evan Gershkovich, arrested on March 29 while reporting, has just seen his incarceration extended until January 30.
Aged 32, this respected reporter, who also worked for Agence France-Presse in Moscow, is accused of espionage, a crime punishable by 20 years in prison. He rejects these accusations, as do Washington, his newspaper, his friends and his family.
Russia has never substantiated its accusations or publicly provided evidence, and the entire procedure has been classified secret. No date for his trial has been set at this time.
Moscow and Washington have carried out prisoner exchanges in the past.