Russian court extends detention of jailed US RFE/RL journalist

A Russian court on Monday extended the pretrial detention of imprisoned American journalist Arsu Kurmasheva until June 5, according to media reports.

Kurmasheva, the editor of VOA sister station Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was sentenced to prison in October 2023. She is accused of failing to register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow considers false information about the Russian military.

Kurmasheva and her employer deny the charges against her. If convicted, she faces up to 15 years in prison.

Kurmasheva, who holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, traveled to Russia in May 2023 due to a family emergency. In June 2023, her passport was confiscated when she tried to leave the country, and in October 2023, she was arrested while waiting for her passport to be returned.

In Monday’s post On social media platform X, Kurmasheva’s husband Pavel Butorin once again denied the accusations against her.

“Russia wants Arsu to be locked up, abandoned and forgotten. No, that will not happen. We will not rest until Arsu is returned to his children,” he said in the post.

Kurmasheva is one of two American journalists currently imprisoned in Russia.

The second one is wall street journal Journalist Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to a year in prison in Russia last week on espionage charges that were widely seen as baseless and politically motivated.

The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an email from VOA seeking comment.

Last week, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow told VOA that Russian authorities had rejected the embassy’s request for consular access to Kurmasheva.

“We are deeply concerned about the detention of Arsu Kurmasheva in Russia,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, suppress and punish journalists and civil society voices. No healthy democracy would take such steps.”

“A free and independent media is an important core institution in consolidating democracy, ensuring that voters can make informed decisions and hold government officials accountable. From this perspective, the accusations against Ms. Kurmasheva are a sign of weakness on the part of Putin’s regime ,” the spokesperson added.