On Friday, after a secret and unusually quick trial in Russia, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
His conviction and sentence are outrageous, even if they are not surprising in the Russian legal system. Simply put, journalism is not a crime.
“Russia has just sentenced an innocent man to 16 years in a high security prison,” journalist Pjotr Sauer, a correspondent for The Guardian who covers Russia and Ukraine and a close friend of Gershkovich, posted on X Friday morning. “I have no words to describe this farce. Let’s get Evan out of there.”
The trial was especially fast, even by Russian standards. This suggests, media outlets have reported, that Russia may be preparing to include Gershkovich in a prisoner swap. While this could mean Gershkovich will soon return to the U.S., he never should have been a prisoner available for a swap.
Gershkovich, a 2014 graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, was reporting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg when he was arrested in March 2023 by Russian security forces. He was charged with spying, although Russia has presented no evidence that this is true. He is the first American journalist accused of espionage since the Cold War.
Detaining Gershkovich likely achieved two aims for the Russian government: It has silenced a chronicler of life in Russia and the country now has a high-value hostage that it hopes to trade for Russian prisoners currently held in the U.S.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel on Thursday declined to discuss negotiations about a possible exchange, the Associated Press reported. But he said: “We have been clear from the get-go that Evan did nothing wrong and should not have been detained. To date, Russia has provided no evidence of a crime and has failed to justify Evan’s continued detention.”
Seeking out and sharing the stories of the Russian people, as Gershkovich did, is not a crime. Gershkovich should never have been arrested and imprisoned.
Yet, U.S. officials are right to negotiate for his quick release, as they have done with some other political prisoners. The sooner he is freed from Russia and its secretive and cruel system of punishment the better.
“Evan’s wrongful detention has been an outrage since his unjust arrest 477 days ago, and it must end now,” the Wall Street Journal said in a statement, a day before the verdict was announced. “Even as Russia orchestrates its shameful sham trial, we continue to do everything we can to push for Evan’s immediate release and to state unequivocally: Evan was doing his job as a journalist, and journalism is not a crime. Bring him home now.”
Bring him home now.
