The Supreme Court of Tatarstan has sentenced Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to 6 and a half years of imprisonment for spreading false information about the Armed Russian Forces of the Russian Federation in a secret trial, the court’s press service said on Monday.

Alsu Kurmasheva worked for the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was sentenced on July 19, 2024 by Judge Salikhov Ilfir Zilbirovich in Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan region. She was found guilty under Article 207.3, Part 2, paragraphs “g” and “d” in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (as amended in 2024). The court’s spokesperson, Natalya Loseva, confirmed the conviction to the press and stated that Kurmasheva would be placed in a medium-security penal colony. Kurmasheva’s guilty verdict, rendered on Friday, only became known publicly on Monday.

Alsu Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, said on X (formerly Twitter) that Kurmasheva had travelled to Kazan, Russia to address a short family emergency and was originally stopped in the Kazan International Airport for not registering her US passport. She was later arrested for failing to declare herself as a foreign agent on October 18, 2023 per Article 330.1 of the Crimina, Code. Her charges were linked to Saying No to War: 40 Stories of Russians Who Oppose the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, a book she edited and which Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty published.

Vladimir Putin signed Russia’s foreign agent law into effect in 2012. Any nongovernmental organisation involved in politics or media that receives foreign funding is recognised as a foreign agent. In Russia, it is required for individuals to declare themselves as foreign agents. The Ministry of Justice places organisations and natural persons in a registry. On December 2, 2019, Putin signed Federal Law No. 426-FZ into law, which allowed the registry citizens, such as journalists and bloggers, as foreign agents. The law was criticised for being vague by human rights activists. Since 2017, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been recognised and listed as a foreign agent but challenged the foreign agents law in the European Court of Human Rights in 2021.

Kurmasheva was convicted on the same day as Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, who was sentenced in Yekaterinburg to 16 years in prison for espionage. Discussions of a prisoner swap have taken place between Russia and the US; however, Kurmasheva has not yet been labelled as wrongfully detained by the United States Department of State. Reporters Without Borders have launched a petition to free Kurmasheva, demanding that the US declare her as wrongfully detained to prompt her release.

Natalia Zviagina, Russia Director for Amnesty International stated that Alsu Kurmasheva’s sentence “highlights the alarming campaign by Russian authorities to stifle free expression and independent reporting in Russia.” Since the Russo-Ukrainian War and invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been suppressing anti-war protesters and foreign media. The arrests of US citizens are becoming common as tensions rise between the US and Russia.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that “journalism is not a crime” and Kurmasheva is one of four journalists from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who is currently detained due to their journalistic work.