CPJ and partners call on Blinken to designate RFE/RL’s Alsu Kurmasheva ‘wrongfully detained’ by Russia

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 13 other press freedom and freedom of expression groups on Tuesday in calling on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to declare Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen and an editor with the Tatar-Bashkir service of the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), as “wrongfully detained” by the Russian government, a status that would unlock a broad U.S. government effort to free her.

Russian authorities detained Kurmasheva on October 18 in the western Russian city of Kazan and charged her with failure to register herself as a foreign agent. If found guilty, she faces up to five years in prison.

Read the full statement below.