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PRAGUE — The husband of detained U.S. journalist Alsu Kurmasheva says his wife is a “political prisoner” and he called on the United States to classify her as “wrongfully detained” as she remains behind bars in Russia on a charge of failing to register as a foreign agent.
In his first public comments since Kurmasheva was taken into custody by Russian security forces on October 18, Pavel Butorin, who like his wife works from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty offices in Prague, said Russian authorities have yet to grant consular access, a violation of her rights, in a case where she faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Kurmasheva holds both Russian and U.S. citizenship.
“We’re already very grateful for the support that we are receiving, but what we need to happen is for Alsu to be designated as a wrongfully detained person. This is a very important designation, the kind that comes from the United States government and from the State Department and we are certain that this designation will speed up her release,” Butorin said from the Czech capital, where he is head of Current Time, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with Voice of America.
“There is nothing we want to happen more than to get Alsu back. My children need her, I need my wife back,” he added.
Kurmasheva, a veteran journalist who has worked for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service for some 25 years, left Prague in mid-May to attend to a family emergency in her native Tatarstan, one of Russia’s many republics.
She was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at the Kazan airport, where both of her passports and phone were confiscated.
After five months waiting for a decision in what Butorin called a “ridiculous case,” Kurmasheva was fined 10,000 rubles ($103) for failing to register her U.S. passport with the Russian authorities.
While waiting for the return of her passports, Kurmasheva was detained again on October 18 and this time charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, a legal designation Russia has used since 2012 to label and punish critics of government policies. It also has been increasingly used to shut down civil society and media groups in Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since her arrest, Kurmasheva has had no contact with her family.
“This is something that the Russian Foreign Ministry has been doing to many of our colleagues here at Radio Free Europe, but there was never an expectation for individuals to self-report,” Butorin said.
“So they’re making laws on the fly, really, you know, and I don’t even think there’s a mechanism in place to report oneself as a foreign agent. So to me these charges are preposterous,” he added.
WATCH: The husband of U.S. journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who has been detained in Russia, gives his first interview about her situation.
Russia’s detention of Kurmasheva, the second U.S. media member to be held by Moscow this year, triggered a wave of criticism from rights groups and politicians saying the move signals a new level of wartime censorship.
Russia has been accused of detaining Americans to use as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for allegedly spying — a charge he and the newspaper vehemently deny — in March.
“We are raising our children as free people. It is, for an American child who is being raised in the spirit of personal freedom, free speech, and free expression, it is so hard to fathom that their mother was thrown into a cold prison cell because of something that she either said on the air or published as a journalist,” Butorin said.
RFE/RL acting President Jeffrey Gedmin has rejected the charges against Kurmasheva, saying she is being persecuted for her professional work.
Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Office, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the chairman of the U.S. House of Representative’s Foreign Affairs Committee have called for Kurmasheva’s immediate release.
“This appears to be another case of the Russian government harassing U.S. citizens,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller said after Kurmasheva was detained.
The “foreign-agent” law allows the authorities to label nonprofit organizations as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activities.
RFE/RL says the law amounts to political censorship meant to prevent journalists from performing their professional duties and is challenging the authorities’ moves in Russian courts and at the European Court of Human Rights.
More than 30 RFE/RL employees have been listed as “foreign agents” by the Russian Justice Ministry in their personal capacity.
In March, a Moscow court declared the bankruptcy of RFE/RL’s operations in Russia following the company’s refusal to pay multiple fines totaling more than 1 billion rubles ($14 million) for noncompliance with the law.
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