Court ruling upholds detention for WSJ’s Gershkovich

Evan Gershkovich

A Moscow court on Thursday upheld a ruling to hold in detention until Jan. 30 of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, arrested in Russia earlier this year on espionage charges.

An Agence France-Presse story states, “The 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent in Moscow, his employer and the U.S. government have all rejected the spying allegations.

‘Evan Gershkovich will remain in custody until Jan. 30, 2024,’ the Moscow City Court said in a statement on social media, turning down an appeal lodged late last month.

“A video released by the court showed Gershkovich, who previously worked for AFP, standing in a cage for defendants during Thursday’s hearing, smiling and wearing a dark-colored sweater.

“Gershkovich was arrested during a reporting trip at the end of March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, becoming the first Western reporter to be held on spying charges in Russia since the Soviet era.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.