Alsou Kurmasheva, journalist "Radio Liberty"arrested in Russia

Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was arrested in Kazan, Russia. She faces up to five years in prison.

Alsou worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and became the second American journalist detained in 2023, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkowitz was arrested earlier.

Alsou Kurmasheva is accused, as the US Congress-funded media company said in a statement, of failing to declare herself “as a foreign agent,” that is, not asking to be included in the appropriate register.

Kurmasheva lived with her husband and children in Prague, but due to “family reasons” she came to Russia on May 20. On June 2, she was detained at the Kazan airport when she was about to leave the country. Kurmasheva’s American and Russian passports were confiscated and she was fined because she did not notify the Russian authorities about her second citizenship, Radio Liberty writes.

Kurmasheva spent the following months in Russia, waiting for her passports to be returned, but on October 18 she was detained, accused of failing to fulfill her duties as a “foreign agent.” In a statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Kurmasheva was in a temporary detention center on Wednesday evening.

Authorities accuse the journalist of “deliberately collecting military information about Russia’s activities via the Internet for the purpose of transmitting this information,” as well as of “conducting information campaigns discrediting Russia.”

CPJ calls on Russia to “immediately release” the journalist and “drop all charges against her.” According to RFE/RL, Alsou “Kurmasheva is an experienced journalist who has long covered the activities of ethnic minorities. She is the editor of the Tatar-Bashkir service of Radio Liberty.” One of Ms. Kurmasheva’s colleagues, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: quotes euronews:

“She was arrested only because she is an employee of Radio Liberty. In fact, today any independent journalist in Russia risks getting the same thing.”

A representative of the public organization OVD-Info said that Kurmasheva will “most likely” be transferred to a pre-trial detention center in the near future. According to CPJ, in 2022, the homes of seven Radio Liberty journalists were searched in Tatarstan.

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