Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

US journalist Evan Gershkovich faces 20-year sentence as trial begins in Russia

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom in Yekaterinburg, Russia, at the start of his trial on espionage charges on June 26, 2024. (AP Photo)

Begum TV is a channel led by Afghan journalists in exile in France. (Photo: AFP/ Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt)

As the closed-door trial of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich opened in a Russian court on Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists denounced it as a travesty of justice and renewed its call for the journalist’s immediate release.

“U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich goes on trial today after nearly 15 months of unjust detention. Given the spurious and unsubstantiated charges brought against him, this trial is nothing more than a masquerade,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must put an end to this travesty of justice, release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting members of the press for their work.”

Gershkovich’s trial started Wednesday, June 26, in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, reports said. It is not known how long the trial will last.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Gershkovich, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, of collecting “secret information” for the CIA on a Russian tank factory in the Sverdlovsk region and arrested him on espionage charges on March 29, 2023.

Forced to flee: Exiled journalists remain unsafe

Begum TV is a channel led by Afghan journalists in exile in France. (Photo: AFP/ Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt)

Threats, repression, conflict, and unrest: across the world, these and other
factors are pushing journalists into exile in record numbers.

In a striking development, exiled or soon-to-be exiled journalists now make up more than half of the people CPJ assists. Between January and June 2024, CPJ provided
financial support to 158 journalists; 101, or about 64% of these people had fled their home countries or were in the process of fleeing.

In a new CPJ special report, Emergencies Director Lucy Westcott explains why so many journalists remain insecure in exile.

More in the report:
-Feature: The exodus of Ecuador’s press
-Feature: Exiled Ethiopian journalists struggle
–CPJ’s recommendations on emergency visas
–CPJ emergency assistance information

Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

Learn more about Myat Thu Tan