Russia Extends Detention Of RFE/RL Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva

A court in Russia on April 1 extended the pretrial detention of RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva until June 5.

The Sovetsky District Court of Kazan also rejected a request by Kurmasheva’s lawyers to have her detention switched to house arrest.

Before the court proceedings, Kurmasheva told reporters that she was “not very well physically,” and that her living conditions in detention “are very bad.”

Kurmasheva said she was receiving “minimal” medical care and that conditions in her cell were primitive, with a hole in the floor serving as a toilet.

U.S. Consul General Stuart Wilson was present at the court during proceedings, according to Russian media, including the daily Kommersant.

Kurmasheva, 47, was arrested in Kazan last October and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent under a punitive Russian law that targets journalists, civil society activists, and others. She’s also been charged with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

RFE/RL and the U.S. government say the charges are reprisals for her work as a journalist for RFE/RL in Prague. She had traveled to Russia to visit and care for her elderly mother and was initially detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport, where her U.S. and Russian passports were confiscated.
Many critics and rights group say that the so-called foreign agent law is used by the Kremlin to crack down on any dissent.

Moscow also has been accused of detaining Americans to use as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States.

In February, 23 countries nominated Kurmasheva for the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano 2024 World Press Freedom Prize.

The prize, created in 1997, is an annual award that honors a person or a group of people who make an “outstanding” contribution to the defense and promotion of press freedom across the globe despite the “danger and persecution” they face./Rferl/