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U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich has now spent a year in a Russian prison. Russia has accused Gershkovich of spying, but has presented no evidence for this claim. Yet, it has extended his detention five times, most recently on Tuesday when the court ordered Gershkovich held until June 30.
Gershkovich, a 2014 graduate of Bowdoin College, was on a reporting trip for the Wall Street Journal when he was arrested on March 29, 2023, in the city of Yekaterinburg.
“The accusations against Evan are categorically untrue. They are not a different interpretation of circumstances, they are fiction,” U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy said in a statement on March 26. She attended Tuesday’s court hearing in Moscow.
“As we cross the one-year mark, the Russian government has yet to present any evidence to substantiate its accusations, no justification for Evan’s continued detention, and no explanation as to why Evan doing his job as a journalist constituted a crime,” she added. “Evan’s case is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends.”
As we and others have said repeatedly, journalism is not a crime. The detention of Gershkovich and other Americans, is clearly about Russian President Vladimir Putin essentially using hostages to gain leverage over other countries, including the U.S. This is especially true after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the condemnations from much of the world for this ongoing military action.
In October, Russia detained Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual American-Russian citizen and editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She has been accused of failing to register as a foreign agent.
This familiar approach from Russian authorities wrongly treats journalistic efforts to inform the international community as some sort of international conspiracy. It’s not; it’s journalism.
Still, the U.S. must continue to negotiate for the release of Gershkovich and Kurmasheva, along with Paul Whalen, a Marine Corps veteran wrongly accused of espionage and held in Russia for more than five years, likely through a prisoner swap. Such negotiations should not be seen as a sign of complying with Russia’s false narrative of journalism, equating it with espionage. Rather, such negotiations reaffirm America’s belief that human lives and human rights must be protected.
There is little reason to believe that Putin will act rationally on these detentions, or any other issue. However, his response to a question about Gershkovich from conservative commentator Tucker Carlson offered a glimmer of hope.
“There is no taboo to settle this issue. We are willing to solve it,” Putin told Carlson in February. “I believe an agreement can be reached.”
To be clear, Gershkovich should never have been detained for simply doing his job as a journalist.
But, now, the priority is to end that detention as soon as possible.