In Kazan, a new charge was brought against the editor of “Idel.Realiya” Also Kurmasheva

Tatarstan authorities detained Alsa Kurmasheva, the editor of the Tatar-Bashkir service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in Kazan on October 18.

Kurmasheva was accused of refusing to register as a “foreign agent”. The punishment for this charge is imprisonment for a term of up to five years.

“Alsu is highly respected by her colleagues, in her family she is a faithful wife and a caring mother of two children,” said the acting president of RCE/RS Geoffrey Gedmin. “She must be released immediately to return to her family.”

Kurmasheva, a citizen of the USA and Russia, lives in Prague with her husband and two children. She went to Russia on May 20 due to an urgent family need. She was detained on June 2 while waiting for a return flight to return to the Czech Republic. Employees of the Kazan airport confiscated both her passports – a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the Russian Federation. Soon she was fined for failing to comply with the requirement to register her American passport with the Russian authorities. She was waiting for both passports to be returned to her when, on October 18, a new charge was announced.

Alsou Kurmashenva is an established journalist who has covered the lives of ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan for many years. She talked about civil initiatives aimed at protecting and preserving the Tatar language and Tatar culture from the growing pressure of the Russian authorities on the Tatar population in recent years.

Since 2012, Russia has had legislation on foreign agents to punish persistent critics of the authorities who receive funds earned from abroad or are considered to be “under foreign influence”, including cooperation with civil society groups and mass media, independent journalists and activists .