UN asked to declare WSJ reporter Gershkovich arbitrarily detained

Lawyers representing Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones requested that a United Nations group declare reporter Evan Gershkovich arbitrarily detained and asked it to appeal to Russia to release him immediately, reports Joanna Sugden of The Journal.

Sugden writes, “In a letter Tuesday to the U.N.’s working group on arbitrary detention, lawyers for the Journal’s publisher accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using Gershkovich as a pawn and of ‘holding him hostage.’

“The lawyers argue that Putin wants to use Gershkovich ‘to gain leverage over—and extract a ransom from—the United States, just as he has done with other American citizens whom he has wrongfully detained.’

“Gershkovich’s ongoing detention ‘is a flagrant violation of many of his fundamental human rights,’ the letter said.

“The working group investigates alleged instances where detention is imposed arbitrarily or inconsistently with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or international legal instruments accepted by the nations concerned.”

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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.