Who is Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist arrested in Russia?
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Wall Street Journal reporter held in a former KGB jail in Russia on espionage prices has had his enchantment in opposition to pre-trial detention rejected by a Russian courtroom.
Evan Gershkovich appeared in courtroom in Moscow on Tuesday, the primary time he had been seen in public for weeks.
He was arrested at a restaurant on March 30 by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which mentioned it had opened a case in opposition to him for accumulating what it mentioned had been state secrets and techniques a couple of navy industrial advanced.
Mr Gershkovich appeared in bullet-proof glass enclosure and didn’t say something to the reporters current.
The courtroom rejected his authorized group’s supply to free him on bail of fifty million roubles ($614,000) or put him beneath home arrest.
The reporter has been ordered to be held not less than till May 29 on espionage prices.
Mr Gershkovich – the primary US journalist to be detained in Russia on espionage prices because the finish of the Cold War – has denied he was involved in espionage, as have Washington and the WSJ.
Here’s what it is advisable learn about Evan Gershkovich.
Who is Evan Gershkovich?
Evan Gershkovich, 31, is an skilled reporter on Russian points, who was working within the metropolis of Yekaterinburg on the time of his detention. He is well-known amongst overseas correspondents in Moscow. BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg described him as a wonderful reporter and a extremely principled journalist.
On Thursday (March 30), he appeared on the Lefortovo courthouse in Moscow for a quick listening to at which the fees had been formally introduced. The Kremlin claimed he had been caught “red-handed” however the Wall Street Journal vehemently denied the allegations in opposition to him.
The FSB, which is the successor company to the Soviet-era KGB, alleged that Mr Gershkovich “was acting on the US orders to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that constitutes a state secret”.
The courtroom ordered him to be held in pre-trial detention till not less than 29 May, native media reported.
Mr Gershkovich speaks fluent Russian and beforehand labored for the French company Agence France-Presse and the New York Times. He covers Russia, Ukraine and different ex-Soviet nations as a correspondent within the WSJ’s Moscow bureau. In his most up-to-date WSJ piece, revealed on March 28, he reported on Russia’s declining financial system and the way the Kremlin was having to cope with “ballooning military expenditures” whereas sustaining social spending.
What has the response been to Evan Gershkovich’s arrest?
Friends and colleagues of Mr Gershkovich known as the allegations absurd, describing him as an expert and the allegations in opposition to him as “ridiculous”.
Tthe Wall Street Journal mentioned it stood in solidarity with the reporter and his household: “The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich.”
The White House has condemned his detention “in the strongest terms”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the Wall Street Journal in saying he was “deeply concerned” by the arrest.
But even earlier than the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, reporting from Russia had turn into harder, with impartial journalists labelled “foreign agents”.
Jeanne Cavelier, head of the jap Europe and central Asia desk on the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, mentioned Mr Gershkovich is the primary overseas journalist to be arrested in Russia because the begin of the battle in Ukraine.
“It looks like a retaliation measure of Russia against the United States, so we are very alarmed because it is probably a way to intimidate all western journalists that are trying to investigate aspects of the war on the ground in Russia,” she informed the Associated Press.
“The western powers should immediately ask for clarifications on the charges because, as far as we know, he was just doing his job as a journalist.”