(Washington) Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was arrested in the Russian city of Kazan, her employer Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty announced on Wednesday, becoming the second American journalist detained in Russia in 2023 after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
Alsu Kurmasheva was indicted for not having declared herself “as a foreign agent”, a charge for which she faces up to five years in prison, specifies in a press release this private media financed by the American Congress.
The journalist, who usually lives in Prague with her husband and children, had to go to Russia for a “family emergency” on May 20, then was temporarily arrested on June 2 before her return flight to Kazan, explains RFE/ RL.
Her American and Russian passports 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 said the journalist was in a temporary detention center on Wednesday evening, according to information from the official Tatar-Inform news agency.
The authorities accuse Alsu Kurmasheva of having “deliberately carried out a collection of military information on Russian activities via the internet in order to transmit this information to foreign sources” in September 2022 as well as of having “led information campaigns discrediting the Russia,” specifies Tatar-Inform.
“Seasoned journalist”
CPJ calls on Russia to “immediately release” the journalist and “drop all charges” against her.
“Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmasheva’s detention is further proof of Russia’s determination to stifle independent journalism,” the organization said in a statement.
According to RFE/RL, Alsu “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 that she can return to her family immediately,” said RFE/RL interim president Jeffrey Gedmin.
Alsu Kurmasheva is the second American journalist to be arrested in Russia in 2023, after Evan Gershkovich.
This journalist at Wall Street Journal was arrested by Russian security services during a report in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, on March 29. He has since been detained in Lefortovo prison in Moscow.
Evan Gershkovich, who also worked for the AFP in Moscow in the past, is accused of espionage, a crime punishable by 20 years in prison, but 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.
Last week, a Moscow court rejected the journalist’s appeal against the extension of his pre-trial detention.
In recent years, several American citizens have been arrested and sentenced to heavy sentences in Russia, with Washington accusing Moscow of wanting to exchange them for Russians detained in the United States.