Back in December, I added to my short list of political HOSTAGES being held in Russian prisons — on false charges ranging from discrediting the government to being “foreign agents” to espionage — one Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist for RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty (RFE/RL). All I knew about Alsu at the time was that she held dual Russian-American citizenship, and had been arrested some weeks earlier on charges of acting as a “foreign agent” in Russia. Her alleged “crime”? Being co-editor — not author, but co-editor — of a book the Russian authorities claim contains “fake” information about the Russian military.

On Thursday of this week, January 25th, she marked her 100th day in a Russian jail in Kazan . . . still without having been designated by the U.S. government as “wrongfully detained.”

Why is this important? Simply because it would raise the profile of the prisoner’s case to “politically motivated” status, as in the existing cases of Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan. But when asked at a briefing on January 24th whether this designation was to be assigned to Alsu’s case, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel replied, “I have no updates to offer on any specific designation, but we have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas.” [RFL/RL News, Jan. 25, 2024.]

So, effectively . . . a response without an answer.

RFE/RL’s acting president Stephen Capus has stated: “We hope the U.S. State Department will quickly designate Alsu as ‘wrongfully detained.’ Even one day unjustly behind bars is a tragedy, but a U.S. citizen wrongfully held in a Russian prison for 100 days is outrageous.” [Id.]

Mr. Patel has assured Alsu’s family and the public that the State Department “remain[s] incredibly concerned about the extension of her pretrial detention. I can also note that our request to visit her was denied on December 20. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow continues to seek appropriate consular access.” [Id.]

But still no word on the upgrading of her status.

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According to a timeline provided by the Coalition For Women In Journalism, Alsu — who lives with her husband and two children in Prague — traveled to Kazan for a family emergency on May 20, 2023. Returning home on June 2nd, she was briefly detained at the Kazan airport, where both her U.S. and Russian passports were seized. After a four-month delay, during which she was of course unable to leave Russia, she was fined 10,000 rubles ($103) for failure to register her U.S. passport. On October 18th, she was detained by the police in Kazan for failure to register as a “foreign agent.” Following another couple of months of bureaucratic b.s., on December 12th the new charges of allegedly disseminating “fake news” were filed. [Committee to Protect Journalists, Jan. 27, 2024.]

The book in question, titled “Saying No To War: 40 Stories Of Russians Who Oppose the Russian Invasion Of Ukraine,” was published in November 2022 by RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service. This book is being used by the Russian authorities as justification for the earlier decision to extend Alsu’s pretrial detention until February 4, 2024. [Id.]

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So, there she sits — another of Russia’s political HOSTAGES, awaiting an uncertain future for having done . . . what? Nothing more than her job as a journalist, in a country whose constitution guarantees freedom of the press, but whose leader chooses to ignore, amend, or simply delete those provisions that prove inconvenient, or contrary to his goals. A totalitarian government, in its truest sense, ruled by a man who at every turn emulates, and repeatedly praises, a predecessor whose very name conjures visions of the most monstrous crimes ever committed against humanity: Josef Stalin.

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Alsu Kurmasheva: One more sacrificial lamb to Vladimir Putin’s Machiavellian political schemes.

We must bring her home.

Brendochka
1/27/24