The U.S. State Department on Monday identified Evan Evan, who was arrested by Russian security services last month. The “wrongful detention” of Evan Gershkovich kicked off a broad campaign by the U.S. government to pressure Russia to release the Wall Street Journal reporter.
Gershkovic is being held on charges of espionage. The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny the allegation. Gershkovich’s case will now be handed over to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, a State Department arm that focuses on freeing hostages and others classified as improperly held in foreign countries. Detained Americans to negotiate.
“Journalism is not a crime,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Wydan Wade. Vedant Patel said in a statement. “We call on the Russian Federation to release Gershkovich immediately.”
The State Department also called on Russia to release another American, Paul J. Whelan (Paul Whelan); The U.S. State Department also previously announced that Whelan was wrongfully detained. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison and remains incarcerated. His family said the allegations were false.
The Russian embassy in the United States and Russia’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The speed at which the designation was reached was unprecedented because it involved a lengthy bureaucratic process that typically took months, officials said. That determination is also rarely made until detainees are able to meet with U.S. consular officials at the local embassy, with which Gershkovich has still not been granted access.
Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted that the State Department’s determination and allocation of further resources was critical amid condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s violations of press freedom. Gershkovich grew up in New Jersey.
“While this case is moving at record speed, it still took our government nearly two weeks to reach this decision. We must do more to streamline the process – especially when journalists are involved,” Eileen O’Reilly, president of the National Press Club, and Gil Klein, director of the club’s journalism institute, said in a joint statement. “We believe that when journalists are detained for doing their work, it must be wrongful detention.”
They called on the State Department hostage envoy to refer the case to the White House National Security Council for a faster resolution.
The Journal’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said a lawyer appointed by the newspaper to represent Gershkovich recently said he was in good health and grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world.
The finding comes after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he believed there was “no doubt” Gershkovich was improperly detained by Russia, saying he had thanked his Russian counterparts in the most recent April 2 meeting. This fact was underscored in Sergei Lavrov’s call.
The Wall Street Journal has strongly denied wrongdoing by Gershkovich and called for his immediate release.
“We are doing everything we can to support Evan and his family, We will continue to work with the State Department and other relevant U.S. officials to pursue his release.”
“He was an outstanding journalist and his arrest is an attack on press freedom that should spark the outrage of all freedom-supporting people and governments around the world,” the statement said.
The White House has described the accusation as “ridiculous,” denying that Gershkovic was a spy, saying he never worked for the U.S. government. In a joint statement Friday, the Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders condemned Gershkovic’s detention and called for his release.
“He doesn’t belong there. He needs to be released. He’s a reporter, not a criminal,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday. “And that doesn’t mean we won’t continue to follow the case as closely as possible. We still don’t have consular access and we’re working on it.”
The designation would mobilize other U.S. government resources to address Gershkovich’s case and expand the State Department’s powers to pressure Russia, monitor intelligence, build diplomatic alliances, exert public pressure and secure routine consular visits.
Monday’s finding was relatively rare: For the roughly 99 percent of Americans detained overseas who face legal trouble, the U.S. has not made a finding that they were wrongfully detained.
Under U.S. law, there are 11 criteria for determining wrongful detention, including whether the person was arrested at least in part because of his or her U.S. citizenship. According to the statistics of human rights organizations, more than 50 Americans have been improperly detained in more than a dozen countries overseas, among which Iran and China have the most cases of improper detention. The U.S. government does not disclose specific numbers of Americans who have been abducted or wrongfully detained, a State Department spokesman said, “because these numbers are constantly changing, and because of privacy concerns and the sensitivity of actions to ensure the release of all Americans.” .
Gershkovich, 31, was arrested and charged with espionage on March 29 while reporting from Yekaterinburg, the capital of a Russian state about 800 miles east of Moscow. Gershkovich was the first American journalist to be detained by the Russian government since 1986 and one of several Americans deemed wrongfully detained by Russia in recent years.
He holds a press card issued by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and can work as a journalist in Russia.
Moscow claimed that Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB in Russian, captured Gershkovich “on the spot,” but offered no evidence to support the allegation or a reason for his arrest. Russia stated that Russia is acting in accordance with the law.
Gershkovich is being held in Russia’s Lefortovo Prison, a pretrial detention center run by the FSB. FSB trials are often held in secret, with little evidence shared about the defendants’ cases.
Gershkovich’s arrest has sparked international condemnation of Russia’s actions.
Clergy around the world prayed for Gershkovic’s release in Easter sermons on Sunday, and at last week’s Passover meal, numerous Jewish seats were reserved for him.
David Malpass, president of the World Bank, said on Monday that the detention of Gershkovich was a “brazen act” by the Russian government that violated press freedom.
On Monday, the editors of six of Italy’s most widely read daily newspapers published an open letter to the Russian ambassador to Italy condemning Gershkovic’s detention and calling for his immediate release. The editors of Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Messaggero and other newspapers said they were conveying the Italian broad public opinion.
In December, basketball star Brittney Griner arrived in the United States by plane after being released from exile in Russia as part of a prisoner exchange for a Russian arms dealer. That prisoner exchange was facilitated in part by the Office of the President’s Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs.More than 10 weeks after Greiner was detained, the U.S. State Department alsofinds she was wrongfully detained。
At Moscow Airport in February 2022, Gliner’s luggage was found to contain a small amount of cannabis oil. She was sentenced to nine years in penal colony for smuggling and drug possession.
U.S. officials said the Russian government’s delay in allowing routine visits by U.S. consular personnel in the case of Griner’s detention kept Griner from seeing representatives of the U.S. embassy for months.
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