US Columnist Confined In Russia
Washington: A Russian-American columnist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Freedom has been confined in Russia and accused of neglecting to enroll as an unfamiliar specialist, her manager and a writer guard dog bunch said Wednesday.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a proofreader with the US Congress-supported outlet’s Tatar-Bashkir administration, “should be delivered so she can get back to her family right away,” RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said in a proclamation.
She is the second US writer to be held by Russia as of late. Evan Gershkovich, a columnist for the Money Road Diary, has been kept since Spring, blamed for spying.
Kurmasheva lives in Prague, Czech Republic, yet entered Russia on May 20 for a family crisis, the New York-based Board to Safeguard Columnists said in a proclamation.
She was briefly kept at the Kazan air terminal on June 2 preceding her return flight, where both her US and Russian travel papers were seized and she was fined for neglecting to enlist her American visa with Russian specialists, as indicated by RFE/RFL.
She was anticipating the arrival of her visas when the new charge was declared, the CPJ said, adding that assuming found blameworthy she has to carry out upwards of five years in prison.
The association said it was “profoundly worried” by the charges.
Russian specialists must “discharge her right away and drop all charges against her,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Focal Asia program facilitator, said.
“News coverage isn’t a wrongdoing and Kurmasheva’s confinement is yet more verification that still up in the air to smother free detailing.”
