Bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea damaged
A Moscow court on Thursday rejected an appeal from Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich seeking an end to his pre-trial detention in Russia, where he was jailed 12 weeks ago and charged with espionage.
Mr Gershkovich, an American journalist who has been in Russia for nearly six years, was arrested in late March and charged with espionage, which he denies. Last month, are detention has been extended until August 30. Although Russian prosecutors have provided no evidence, he has been held for 12 weeks in Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo Prison, run by the successor to the KGB and known for its harsh conditions, including extreme isolation.
The court denied his lawyers’ request. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracey was in attendance, as were Mr. Gershkovich, Ella Millman and Mikhail Gershkovich.
The United States government and The Journal have vehemently rejected the allegations. The White House has said Mr. Gershkovich is “wrongly detained”, equivalent to a political prisoner. The designation changes Washington’s approach to the detention of an American abroad, mostly because it believes the detainee was arbitrarily detained or does not face a legitimate charge or due process.
Russia said Thursday it had received and was considering a request from the United States for a consular visit to the reporter, the Interfax news agency reported. “There is no decision yet, but it is being considered,” the agency was quoted as saying by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov. While Russia authorized such a visit in April, it has rejected other requests.
Press freedom in Russia has declined sharply under President Vladimir V. Putin as he has embraced authoritarian measures targeting journalists, opposition and dissent. Mr Putin had targeted local journalists, especially since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, which allowed foreign correspondents to work with a sense of freedom.
But that changed on March 29, when Mr Gershkovich was arrested while on a reporting trip in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, becoming the first Western journalist to be charged with espionage since the Cold War. If convicted, he could face 20 years in a Russian penal colony.
The House of Representatives unanimously agreed a resolution on June 13, a call on the Russian government to release Mr Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who is serving a 16-year prison sentence following a 2020 espionage conviction.
Dmitri A. Muratov, the Russian journalist who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, praised Mr Gershkovich’s work at a media forum in Bonn, Germany, on Tuesday.
“I know him well – practically all of Moscow knows him well,” Mr Muratov said in a speech to the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. “He loves the country where he works. He’s an incredible journalist and he’s not a spy in any way.”