The world needs Evan Gershkovich
Americans continue to debate how Russia’s actions affect us at home and whether we should care about Vladimir Putin’s latest transgression in Ukraine or bogus elections in Moscow. Some reason we have our own problems to worry about. But these events aren’t occurring in a vacuum. Russia’s actions are part of a rising tide of authoritarianism worldwide, and a Putin on the march is a threat beyond Russia or Ukraine.
The one-year anniversary on Friday of Evan Gershkovich’s unjust detainment by the Putin regime is a painful reminder of as much. Gershkovich, an American journalist born to Russian immigrants, was accredited by the Russian Foreign Ministry. He isn’t the only American facing bogus Russian charges — former Marine Paul Whelan is serving a 16year sentence in a penal colony for false espionage charges.
Gershkovich was detained for merely doing his job. Writing for
The Wall Street Journal, his last piece was titled “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone” and described Russia’s economic troubles amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. A day after the article was published, he was arrested and charged with “espionage” — an accusation the Biden administration has called “ridiculous.” On Tuesday, Russian courts extended his detention by three months.
His crime was telling the truth, an increasingly costly act in Russia and beyond. It’s the same crime that led to the mysterious death, widely suspected to be a state-backed murder, of Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist. Gershkovich’s detainment was a breach of international norms and marks a dark, new chapter. He is the first American journalist to be arrested under false charges of espionage since the Cold War. Putin is attacking the barriers against absolute tyranny: a free press, a political opposition, neighboring borders.
But Putin isn’t alone in his onslaught on free society. From Tehran to Beijing to Moscow, calling out tyrannical power has become a radical act, even in countries led by supposedly democratically elected governments. The philosopher John Locke cautioned against assuming that only monarchs can be tyrants, writing that “wherever the power that is put in any hands for the government of the people … made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it, there it presently becomes tyranny.”
A free press helps to point out such abuses, which is why authoritarians in “democracies” around the world are attacking it. In a oncedemocratic Hong Kong, for example, Communist Party leadership passed a bogus national security law in 2020 meant to curb rising opposition to China. Beijing has recently doubled down, pressuring the city’s government to impose yet another law meant to crack down further on free expression. This is despite ongoing international outrage for the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, a prodemocracy media tycoon. He’s still on trial after being arrested for a series of tweets and articles his outlet Apple Daily published in opposition to the 2020 law.
When telling the truth becomes a crime for the press, normal citizens are the next target. Yuen Ching-ting, a 23-year-old Hong Kong student at a Japanese university, was arrested by the national security police in Hong Kong for alleged “seditious” social media posts that called out the Hong Kong and Chinese governments. In Iran, there have been mass arrests of government protesters in the aftermath of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the so-called morality police. In Venezuela, the Maduro regime continues to imprison political allies of opposition leaders.
While we don’t personally know Gershkovich, we do know what he represents. His story speaks to us intimately about the responsibility we have to our readers. Newspapers aim to give a clear-eyed view of the world to our readers, and that often means pushing back against local and national leadership. This is our right, but increasingly it feels like an even greater privilege. Gershkovich, a news reporter, was detained for merely reporting back to his Journal readers about daily matters in Russia.
These are dangerous times and we need people like Gershkovich more than ever. With authoritarians on the march, a free press is especially vital to serve as a bulwark against tyranny. Joining American newsrooms around the country, we call on Russia to free Evan.