Closed-door trial of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich begins in Russia

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published last year

NEW YORK—As the trial of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich began behind closed doors in a Russian court on Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the proceedings as a severe miscarriage of justice and reiterated its demand for his immediate release.

"U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich goes on trial today after nearly 15 months of wrongful detention. Given the baseless and unsupported charges against him, this trial is a sham," stated Gulnoza Said, CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. "Russian authorities must end this injustice, release Gershkovich, dismiss all charges, and cease prosecuting journalists for their reporting."

The trial, which commenced on June 26 at the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg, remains of indeterminate length, according to reports.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) charged Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, with espionage on March 29, 2023, alleging he collected "secret information" for the CIA about a Russian tank factory in the Sverdlovsk region.

Facing up to 20 years in prison, Gershkovich is the first American journalist to be accused of espionage by Russia since the Cold War. Both the journalist, his employer, and the U.S. government have vehemently denied these allegations.

"No evidence has been presented. The outcome is already known: This false accusation of espionage will lead to a wrongful conviction of an innocent journalist who could face up to 20 years in prison for simply doing his job," said Emma Tucker, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, in a statement on Tuesday.

On June 13, the Russian prosecutor general's office announced that Gershkovich's indictment was finalized.

"We were hopeful to broker a deal with the Russians before this, but it doesn't stop or slow us down," stated Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the U.S. Department of State, to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the same day.

On April 11, 2023, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as "wrongfully detained," prompting a comprehensive government effort to secure his release.

Russia is the world's fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 currently imprisoned, including Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist, as per CPJ's latest prison census on December 1, 2023.—A CPJ Statement/Photo: AP