US House votes unanimously on resolution demanding Gershkovich release

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 422-0 to approve a bipartisan resolution calling on Russia to immediately free jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, reports Simon Levien of the Journal.

Levien reports, “The congressional resolution demands that Moscow release Gershkovich immediately and that it provide him unfettered access to U.S. consular officials during his imprisonment. It doesn’t have the binding force of U.S. law, but it underscores congressional support for Biden administration efforts to free him.

“‘We applaud this latest show of bipartisan support from Congress in the fight for Evan’s release,’ said Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker and Almar Latour, chief executive of Dow Jones, publisher of the Journal. “His wrongful detention is a blow to press freedom, and it should matter to anyone who values free society. We will not rest until he is free.”

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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.