WSJ asks UN free-speech advocate to help obtain Gershkovich release

Evan Gershkovich

Lawyers representing Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, asked a United Nations free-speech advocate to make an urgent appeal to Russia for the immediate release of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, reports Journal reporter Jennifer Calfas.

Calfas writes, “Mr. Gershkovich, the lawyers wrote, is being held as a ‘high-value political prisoner.’

“‘Russia’s continued detention of Evan Gershkovich is a gross violation of his rights under international instruments to which Russia is a party and under Russia’s own domestic law,’ the lawyers wrote. ‘Russia’s arrest of him is an affront to the work of all journalists and the values of openness and free expression at the core of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate.’

“A Moscow court in April upheld Mr. Gershkovich’s detention. Mr. Gershkovich was denied bail and ordered to be held in Lefortovo prison. The facility is often used to house prominent political prisoners, and former prisoners have told the Journal it is engineered to be isolating.”

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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.