UN panel says Evan Gershkovich should be released immediately

A United Nations panel has said Russia has arbitrarily detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich under unsubstantiated claims of espionage and that he should be freed immediately.

A United Nations panel has said Russia has arbitrarily detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich under unsubstantiated claims of espionage.

The panel said the Wall Street Journal reporter should be immediately released from prison.

According to the WSJ, these findings, which were released on Tuesday but adopted in March, adds to international condemnation of the journalist’s arrest and imprisonment in Russia.

Gershkovich has been held in Russia since March last year, accused of espionage. He strongly denies this claim, along with the Journal and the US government.

“There is a striking lack of any factual or legal substantiation provided by the authorities of the Russian Federation for the espionage charges against Mr. Gershkovich,” the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded.

The panel said Russia has failed to refute the argument that its espionage charges were intended to punish Gershkovich for his journalistic work.

“Gershkovich’s arrest was…in fact designed to punish his reporting on the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Consequently, it lacked a legal basis and is arbitrary,” the UN panel said.

It comes as Gershkovich’s closed-door trial for espionage has started in Russia, 15 months after his shock arrest on charges he, his employer and the White House reject as false.

“The judge has entered the hall. The process has started,” Russia’s Sverdlovsk Regional Court press secretary Irina Toshcheva told reporters on Wednesday. Mr Gershkovich is being tried in Yekaterinburg.

The Wall Street Journal correspondent became the first Western journalist to be charged with spying in Russia since the Cold War when he was detained in March 2023 on a reporting trip to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

Mr Gershkovich smiled and greeted journalists in the court with a barely audible “hi”, as he stood inside the glass defendants’ cage.

He wore a dark checked shirt and jeans, his head shaven.

Russian prosecutors accused Mr Gershkovich of working for the CIA and “collecting secret information” about the country’s main tank manufacturer in the Urals – claims Washington says are fabricated.

US journalist Evan Gershkovich gestures from inside a glass defendants' cage prior to a hearing in Yekaterinburg's Sverdlovsk Regional Court on Wednesday. Picture: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP

If convicted, Mr Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in a penal colony. The 32-year-old spent almost 15 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison following his arrest.

The US State Department said the accusations against him had “zero credibility”, while the Wall Street Journal said he was arrested for “simply doing his job”.

Just seen Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who goes on trial today in Yekaterinburg. Emma Tucker, editor in chief of the WSJ writes: “This bogus accusation of espionage will inevitably lead to a bogus conviction for an innocent man who would then face up to 20 years… pic.twitter.com/kWSjAeabGK

— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) June 26, 2024

Washington has accused Moscow of arresting its citizens on baseless charges to use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad.

Moscow said last week, days after the trial date was announced, that it was waiting for a response from Washington on ideas Russia had presented for a possible prisoner swap.

Judge Andrei Mineyev will preside over the court proceedings held behind closed doors, as is typical for espionage cases.

Despite the charges against him, the reporter has appeared cheerful and smiled in previous hearings.

Evan Gershkovich shapes a heart with his hands inside a defendants' cage after a hearing. Picture: AFP

In one instance, he was caught smiling to a man in a balaclava who led him, handcuffed, through the snow.

President Vladimir Putin has hinted he wants to see Mr Gershkovich freed as part of a prisoner swap deal with the US, seeking the release of a Russian man jailed in Germany for killing an exiled Chechen separatist commander.

US President Joe Biden, who hailed Mr Gershkovich as courageous for his reporting in Russia, has said his administration will work “every day” to bring the reporter home.

Mr Gershkovich’s parents, who fled repression in the Soviet Union and settled in the US in the 1970s, have previously said that they were counting on a “very personal promise” from Mr Biden.

“We know that he is innocent of what he is being accused of,” his father Mikhail Gershkovich told the Wall Street Journal in a video interview in March.

Russia holds other US citizens in its jails, including marine Paul Whelan, in prison for more than five years on spying charges, and US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was detained last year while visiting family.

Raised in New Jersey and a fluent Russian speaker, Mr Gershkovich reported from Russia for six years and stayed there even as dozens of other Western journalists left in the wake of Moscow’s Ukraine offensive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February he would like to see Gershkovich released as part of a prisoner exchange. Picture: AFP

He moved to Moscow in 2017 to work for small English-language newspaper, The Moscow Times, where he produced some of the outlet’s biggest stories on a shoe-string budget.

He then worked for AFP before becoming a Moscow correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, weeks before the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine.

In the job, he reported on how the conflict was affecting ordinary Russians, speaking to the families of dead soldiers.

His friends say he was determined to stay in Russia as long as possible. There has been a major campaign to release Gershkovich, with many of his supporters praising his resilience while behind bars.

The Gershkovich family has also said it is staying strong.

“He knows that we are doing well and we are strong,” his mother Ella Milman told the Wall Street Journal in March.

“He put the bar up high and we need to follow his example.” Her son “still worries about us” from prison, she said, adding that he was “exercising, meditating and reading a lot” in Moscow’s Lefortovo.

“He is managing the best way he can.”

Originally published as UN panel says Evan Gershkovich should be released immediately