A second U.S. journalist has been detained by Russian authorities and is being held in custody.
Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva was charged by Russian officials Wednesday with acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
“Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children,” said Jeffrey Gedmin, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty acting president.
“She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately,” he added.
Alsu Kurmasheva at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic. (Claire Bigg/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty via AP)
Kurmasheva was stopped and detained at the Kazan International Airport while reportedly in Russia for a family emergency on May 20.
RFE claims the Russian authorities took Kurmasheva’s passport and later fined her for failing to register it with the government.
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The headquarters of Russian Federal Security Service in Moscow. (Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Xinhua via Getty Images)
She was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent on Wednesday while waiting for her passport to be returned.
Radio Free Europe is a media outlet funded and promoted by the U.S. government.
Kurmasheva is the second American journalist this year to be detained by Russian authorities.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for alleged espionage in March. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)
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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested seven months ago in the city of Yekaterinburg — the first U.S. journalist detained by Russia since the Cold War.
He has made multiple court appearances appealing his confinement but has been unsuccessful thus far.
Russian authorities say Gershkovich, “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”