Evan Gershkovich Release: Celebrate ‘Win’ for Free Press, Speech

Olympians competing in Paris aren’t the only ones who can take a victory lap today. So can defenders of a free press and free speech.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other journalists were among the 16 people freed on Aug. 1 in a prisoner exchange with Russia, said to be the largest such swap since the Cold War. Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also was freed, as was Vladimir Kara-Murza, a columnist for The Washington Post and a Russian-British citizen.

Speaking from the White House after the release was completed, President Joe Biden said the journalists were “unjustly held.” He said the United States stands “for freedom, for liberty, for justice.”

The Journal had vigorously defended Gershkovich, sentenced in July to 16 years in prison, denying he was involved in any spy activities. In June 2023, Gershkovich and Austin Tice, an abducted Washington Post contributor and freelance journalist, received a Free Expression Award from Freedom Forum on behalf of all journalists wrongfully detained or held hostage.

Shortly after confirming Gershkovich’s release, Journal publisher Almar Latour and Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker issued a joint statement to “condemn in the strongest terms Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan’s 491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations and a fake trial as part of an all-out assault on the free press and truth.”

Latour and Tucker added, “Unfortunately, many journalists remain unjustly imprisoned in Russia and around the world.” In January, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported “an estimated 320 journalists around the world were imprisoned because of their work.”

Kara-Murza, the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary, was arrested in 2022, just one month after a speech in Arizona where he criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The Pulitzer committee honored Kara-Murza for “passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.”

Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was sentenced in July to 6 ½ years on a charge of “spreading false information” about Russia’s military in a book she had edited.

The three journalists would have been protected in the U.S. by one or more of the five freedoms of the First Amendment: religion, speech, the press, assembly and petition. That strong legal bulwark prevents the government from silencing critics, protects protest and free expression, and encourages the “watchdog” role that the nation’s founders envisioned for a free press.

Tuesday’s release of Gershkovich, Kurmasheva, Kara-Murza and the others is a time for all to celebrate freely.

Gene Policinski is the senior First Amendment fellow at Freedom Forum.