Stretching out the time in Russian custody, the 32-year-old reporter for The Wall Street Journal reads letters from his family and well-wishers, meets with his Russian legal team, has occasional visits from the U.S. ambassador, and attends court hearings.
To keep attention on the case, the Journal staged swims in solidarity with the reporter at beaches named Brighton around the world. Gershkovich has ties to the Brighton beaches in both New York and Britain.
Gershkovich, whom the United States has declared wrongfully detained, is the first American journalist jailed in Russia on spying accusations since the Cold War. The arrest highlights threats facing press freedom globally, Beckett said.
Such jailings highlight the poor state of press freedom in Russia. At the end of 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, ranked the country as the fourth worst for imprisoning media workers, with 22 behind bars.
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