A spokesman for the judiciary told AFP that a court in the Russian city of Kazan extended the pretrial detention of Russian-American journalist Alsou Kurmasheva until August 5.
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This 47-year-old Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist was arrested in Russia in October 2023 for not registering as a “foreign agent,” a notorious term that imposes severe administrative restrictions on the persons or entities involved. . .
According to her media outlets, she is also accused of spreading “false information” about the Russian army, punishable by 15 years in prison, charges that RFE/RL considered “unfounded.”
The spokeswoman for the Sovetsky Court in the capital, Kazan, told AFP by phone that his pretrial detention had been extended until August 5 during a “closed session.” Tatarstan.
A Russian Federation spokesman told AFP on Friday that Alsou Kurmasheva “is being detained because of her strict commitment to telling the truth to the Russian people, regardless of whether that truth makes the Kremlin uncomfortable.” session.
He stressed that “journalism is not a crime.”
“We continue to call on Russia to release journalists and prisoners of conscience unjustifiably imprisoned and detained in Russia,” Kannigan added.
The journalist, who was residing in Prague before her arrest with her husband and two teenage daughters, had gone to Russia to visit her sick mother on May 20, 2023, but was unable to leave after her American and Russian passports were confiscated.
According to Russian media, the charge against her of publishing “false information” is related to her participation in publishing a book of testimonies of Russians opposing the attack in Ukraine.
NGOs believe that the arrest of Alsou Kurmasheva represents a new stage in the Russian campaign against independent media, which has intensified since the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington also accuses Moscow of carrying out unjustified arrests of American citizens in order to exchange them for Russians detained in the West.
Alsou Kurmasheva, who joined RFE/RL in 1998, serves in the Tatar and Bashkir languages, covering these ethnic minorities in Russia who inhabit particularly the Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Volga and Ural regions.
Another American journalist detained in Russia, Ivan Gershkovich, was arrested in March 2023 while reporting, and has since been detained in Moscow on espionage charges, which he denies. At the end of March, his pretrial detention was extended until June 30.
