Seven months after the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, another journalist with a US passport has been arrested in Russia. This is Alsou Kurmasheva, editor of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, who is accused of not registering as a foreign agent when she was visiting Russia, according to the station, financed by the United States and based in Prague.
According to this medium, Kurmasheva, who has dual Russian and American nationality and works for its Tatar-Bashkir service, traveled to Russia on May 20 for a family emergency.
Once her commitments were over, when she tried to leave the country, she was detained on June 2 and her passports were confiscated while she was waiting for her flight to depart at the airport in Kazan, capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan (Volga region). She was fined for not registering her American passport with Russian authorities.
This Wednesday, October 18, she was arrested on charges of failing to register as a “foreign agent” with the Russian Ministry of Justice. She could be sentenced to a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Radio Free Europa/Radio Liberty recalled that Russia has since 2021 used foreign agent laws to punish alleged critics of the Government who receive funding from abroad or are considered to be “under foreign influence”, including civil society groups, media communication, independent journalists and activists. The same outlet is included in the list of “foreign agents” of the Russian Ministry of Justice.
In a statement posted on the social network . Kurmasheva lives permanently with her family in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic.
According to the Russian news agency Tatar-Inform, Kurmasheva had not registered as a foreign agent despite carrying out professional work during her stay in Russia. This medium said that the journalist was collecting information about military activity in Russia. Specifically, about professors from a university in Tatarstan who had been mobilized by the Army.
In addition, there is a possibility that she will be sued for the publication of a book “that negatively exposes Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine,” the agency says, using the euphemism here for the war that began with entry of the Russian Army into the neighboring country 20 months ago.
RFE/RL and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have called for the immediate release of the informant. CPJ expressed concern about an arrest on “spurious criminal charges.” “Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmasheva’s arrest is further proof that Russia is determined to suppress independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.
It is the second arrest this year of a journalist with US citizenship. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on March 30 the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, who worked for The Wall Street Journal. Arrested in Yekaterinburg, he has since remained in prison accused of espionage for allegedly collecting information about a company of the Russian military-industrial complex.
