The Biden administration’s designation of the American reporter Evan Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia is not merely a statement of the obvious, but unlocks additional resources to secure his release and shows that the US is rightly prioritising his case. Gershkovich, of the Wall Street Journal, was detained on 29 March on a reporting trip to Ekaterinburg, and was formally charged last Friday. The Federal Security Service alleges that he has committed espionage; the rest of the world recognises this as another shocking instance of the state’s pursuit of hostage diplomacy, and an attack on independent journalism.
Unlike the arrest last year of the US basketball player Brittney Griner – detained for possessing a small amount of cannabis oil and ultimately freed in a prisoner swap for the arms dealer Viktor Bout – this case appears not merely opportunistic, but calculated and approved from the top. Gershkovich also faces far more serious charges of espionage. Another US citizen, the former marine Paul Whelan, is serving a 16-year sentence of hard labour on spying charges after he was seized in late 2018; he too has been deemed wrongfully detained.
The Russian state has plenty of experience in jailing people on bogus charges, and the extraordinarily broad definition of espionage, which it introduced in 2012, gives it plenty of leeway. The offence need not mean working for a foreign state, but merely gathering information for any overseas organisation that Moscow deems a threat to national security. It can apply to information that is publicly available or not shared with anyone else. The prosecution need not prove intent.
Gershkovich is the first American journalist to have been held in this manner in modern Russia; the last such case was the Soviet Union’s arrest of Nicholas Daniloff, in 1986. While the primary goal of his detention appears to be the acquisition of another bargaining chip – to exchange for Russian spies detained overseas – it also sends a chilling message to his colleagues, especially since he was fully accredited by the foreign ministry.
Of course, like other overseas journalists who have had to decide whether to remain in Moscow or try to cover Russia from outside its borders, the 31-year-old was well aware of the risks. He had documented the growing repression under Vladimir Putin, tweeting last summer that “Reporting on Russia is now also a regular practice of watching people you know get locked away for years”. Friends have said that Gershkovich believed it was his professional duty to continue reporting, and felt privileged to be able to do so when Russians could not. Leading independent journalists have signed a letter in his support, drawing parallels between his case and that of the Russian reporter Ivan Safronov, who was sentenced to 22 years on trumped-up treason charges.
Despite the welcome intensity of US efforts to free Gershkovich, the grim reality is that this may well be a very long and protracted process. While he has now seen his lawyers, they were not allowed to attend his initial hearing. He has still not been permitted a consular visit. He should be granted full consular and legal access. As dozens of editors around the world have written in a joint letter calling for Gershkovich’s release, this unjust arrest has sent the message that journalism in Russia is criminalised. Gershkovich should never have been detained. He should now be released.
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