Moscow arrests another Russian-American journalist: "Foreign agent", she risks up to five years
Organizations for the defense of the free press rise up: "Journalism is not a crime, release her immediately"
Russian police have arrested Alsu Kurmasheva, a reporter with dual Russian and American citizenship , on charges of failing to register on the list of "foreign agents" . This was reported by Radio Liberty, the newspaper financed by the US Congress and for which Kurmasheva works.
According to Tatar-Info - reports the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) - the investigators accuse Kurmasheva, who risks up to five years in prison, of having «deliberately conducted a targeted collection of military information on Russian activities via the internet in order to to transmit information to foreign sources".
Charges that could instead be linked to his coverage of the partial mobilization of Russian reservists for the invasion of Ukraine in September last year, when Putin called up hundreds of thousands of reservists for the invasion of Ukraine.
“Journalism is not a crime and Kurmasheva's detention is further proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent journalism ,” denounced the Committee to Protect Journalists, urging Moscow to “immediately” release the reporter and “withdraw all the charges against her."
«She must be released so that she can return immediately to her family», stated the president of Radio Liberty, Jeffrey Gedmin, while for Reporters Without Borders «with this new arrest Russia takes a further step forward in its blackmail in towards the United States, which helps Ukraine defend itself."
Kurmasheva lives in Prague, from where she writes about the Russian regions of Bashkiria and Tatarstan. Radio Liberty says she returned to Russia at the end of May for what was supposed to be a short visit for family reasons. But on June 2, when she was about to leave, police stopped her at Kazan airport and fined her on charges of failing to report to Russian authorities that she also had American citizenship.
The journalist - the newspaper continues - was then released, but both her passports were confiscated. And yesterday, while she was still stuck in Russia waiting for her documents to be returned, she was arrested.
The arrest comes seven months after that of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March on "espionage" charges.
(Unioneonline/D)
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