A Russian court said it was considering a request for pretrial detention for Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was arrested on Wednesday and became the second U.S. reporter detained in Russia. Since the Kremlin began its attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has seen a sweeping crackdown on independent media, NGOs, journalists, lawyers and political opponents. While many Russian activists and reporters have fled the country for fear of arrest, many others – both famous and lesser-known – have been imprisoned. The Soviet court in Kazan, Tatarstan, told the press that Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist for the American media Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was being prosecuted for violating the requirement To as a “foreign agent” and that it had subsequently called in investigators for his Imprisonment. The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. local time. According to the court, the journalist is accused of failing to provide the documents required for registration, although he was involved in the “deliberate collection of information about military activities” that could harm “the security of the Russian Federation.”
