Russia must face consequences for imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter, lawyer says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia must face consequences for its detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a lawyer for the newspaper said Thursday as the journalist approaches the one-year anniversary of his arrest.

“In a scenario like this, where a reporter is taken off the beat for just doing his job — wrongfully detained — there ought to be immediate consequences from the government,” said Jason Conti, general counsel at Dow Jones, which publishes the newspaper. He was speaking at a National Press Club event in Washington.

Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023, on espionage charges, which he and the newspaper deny, while on a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. The U.S. government has designated him as wrongfully detained and Russian authorities have detailed no evidence to support the charges.

He was visited in jail on Thursday by U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, according to the American embassy in Russia, which said in a social media post that “Evan remains strong and resilient, but it is a tragedy he awaits a trial for a crime he did not commit.”

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