US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva sentenced to 6½ years in secret trial

“Russia’s appalling assault on the media continues to escalate with the secret sentencing of Alsu Kurmasheva,” said CPJ Director of Advocacy and Communications Gypsy Guillén Kaiser. “The U.S. government should immediately designate Kurmasheva – a dual U.S.-Russian citizen – as ‘wrongfully detained,’ leave no stone unturned to obtain her release, and stop Russia from using journalists as political pawns.”

Kurmasheva’s closed-door hearing took place on the same day that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in jail on espionage charges, and against a backdrop of Russia’s increasing use of in absentia arrest warrants and sentences against exiled Russian journalists.

The U.S. government has designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia – a move that unlocked a broad U.S. government effort to free him – but has not made the same determination about Kurmasheva.

Kurmasheva, an editor with the Tatar-Bashkir service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was detained on October 18, 2023, on charges of failing to register as a “foreign agent.” In December, a second charge of spreading “fake” information about the army — related to a book she had edited about Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine — was brought against her.

Kurmasheva has denied both charges. The status of the foreign agent case, which carries a sentence of up to five years, is unknown.

“This secret trial and conviction make a mockery of justice — the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said on Monday.

“My daughters and I know Alsu has done nothing wrong. And the world knows it too. We need her home,” Kurmasheva’s husband Pavel Butorin told CPJ on Monday.

Russia is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with CPJ’s most recent prison census documenting at least 22 journalists in prison on December 1, 2023.