MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian prosecutors were asking a court on Friday to place Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva in pre-trial detention, the court said, after her arrest on suspicion of breaking a law on “foreign agents”.
Kurmasheva is a Prague-based journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which is funded by the U.S. Congress and designated by Russia as a “foreign agent”, meaning it gets foreign funding for activity deemed to be political.
She is accused of failing to register as such when she entered Russia on May 20 for a family emergency. She was detained as she waited for her return flight on June 2.
“This appears to be another case of the Russian government harassing U.S. citizens,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters on Thursday.
Russian officials have yet to comment on the arrest.
Kurmasheva is the second U.S. journalist to be arrested and charged in Russia since the start of its war in Ukraine.
After Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March on spying charges, which he denies, almost all other U.S. journalists left Russia. Washington has repeatedly urged other Americans to leave.
According to court documents, Kurmasheva was fined 10,000 roubles ($103) on Oct. 11 for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities.
On Oct. 18, she was charged with failure to register as a foreign agent, an offence that carries up to five years in prison.
RFE/RL President Jeffrey Gedmin said Kurmasheva was a “highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children” and called for her immediate release.
The term “foreign agent”, which has Cold War connotations of espionage, has been applied in Russia to organisations, journalists, rights activists and even entertainers, and brings with it close government scrutiny and a mountain of red tape.
The Tatar-Inform news agency quoted investigators as saying Kurmasheva had been gathering information on military activity, including about university teachers who had been called up to the army.
On Thursday it published a video showing her being escorted into a building by four masked men after her arrest. ($1 = 96.8475 roubles)
(Reporting by Filipp Lebedev and Mark Trevelyan)
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