Two American journalists were sentenced to extended prison sentences in secret Russian court proceedings over the last week, heightening the concern of journalists abroad.
The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to spend 16 years in prison while Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in recent days. Both have denied they committed the crimes they’ve been convicted of in Russia’s skewed judicial system that overwhelmingly results in convictions, and the United States has urged Russian officials to release them.
“Russia’s appalling assault on the media continues to escalate with the secret sentencing of Alsu Kurmasheva,” Committee to Protect Journalists Director of Advocacy and Communications Gypsy Guillén Kaiser said in a statement.
The CPJ’s most recent prison census from Dec. 1, 2023, found at least 22 journalists in Russian prisons. Russia is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, according to the CPJ.
Media freedom has become a big concern since Russia began its war in Ukraine back in February 2022. A month after his country invaded, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law calling for prison sentences of up to 15 years for individuals who publish “knowingly false information” about the war, though that law has been used, in effect, to silence criticism and unfavorable coverage.
Kurmasheva was convicted of “spreading false information” about the military after a trial that lasted just two days, according to the Associated Press.
“This secret trial and conviction make a mockery of justice — the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said. “It’s beyond time for this American citizen, our dear colleague, to be reunited with her loving family.”
Gershkovich is considered wrongfully detained by the State Department, but Kurmasheva is not. The designation is determined by the department via a checklist laid out by the Robert Levinson Act, though the main premise is whether it is believed the arresting or detaining state or nonstate actor is doing so to facilitate an exchange that would net them something they want.
“The U.S. government should immediately designate Kurmasheva – a dual U.S.-Russian citizen – as ‘wrongfully detained,’ leave no stone unturned to obtain her release, and stop Russia from using journalists as political pawns,” Kaiser added.
Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained within two weeks of his initial arrest, while Kurmasheva has been in prison since Oct. 18, 2023.
Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, and their two daughters traveled to Washington last week to lobby for her. They live in Prague, and she went to Russia in May 2023 to visit her sick mother.
“I’m going to put it in the most blunt terms possible,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not happy with that at all. I’ve been disappointed and frustrated for many, many months. I must say, though, that our ultimate goal is to bring Alsu back, not to get her an official designation from the U.S. government. It must be said, however, it’s a means to an end.”
Another journalist, Masha Gessen, who is Russian American, was convicted in absentia last week on charges of disseminating “false information” about the war. Gessen, a writer for the New York Times, lives in the U.S. and is the author of numerous books about Russia.
Gessen said on Facebook that “as far as I understand from the indictment,” the charge is related to an interview with anti-war Russian blogger Yuri Dud, which was published on YouTube. In the interview, they discussed alleged Russian war crimes, which the U.S. and the International Criminal Court have alleged are ongoing.
Bill McCarren of the National Press Club told the Washington Examiner that the group believes any journalist arrested overseas should automatically be deemed wrongful until the government can confirm the arrest or detention was just.
“We’re asking State to immediately declare when a journalist is taken, a U.S. journalist is taken, just immediately declare that an unjust or wrongful detention, and then, yes, go through the process and the examination and work it out on the back end,” he said, adding that this could serve as a form of deterrence against state and nonstate actors from detaining journalists.
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“If it makes Russians and others reluctant to arrest journalists who are there and credentialed and working in the country with the approval of the government, I’m okay with that,” McCarren explained. “I think they should be reluctant to do that right.”
“Evan Gershkovich received a sentence of 16 years in a Russian prison, despite having committed no crime. Rather, he was targeted by the Russian government because he is a journalist and an American. We are pushing hard for Evan’s release and will continue to do so,” President Joe Biden said in a statement that did not mention Kurmasheva, though it did reference another American, Paul Whelan, who is not a journalist but is considered wrongfully detained in Russia.