The News
A Russian court in Yekaterinburg began a closed-door trial against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on Wednesday in a proceeding his newspaper decried as “a sham trial.”
Russia has claimed that Gershkovich, who was on assignment for the Journal at the time of his arrest, was spying for the US. Both Gershkovich and the Journal have denied the claims.
“To even call it a trial... is unfair to Evan and a continuation of this travesty of justice that already has gone on for far too long,” the paper’s editor-in-chief Emma Tucker wrote Tuesday.
In a separate statement with publisher Almar Latour, Tucker said that it was “jarring to see him in yet another courtroom for a sham trial held in secret and based on fabricated accusations,” adding the proceedings are “an unfathomable attack on the free press.”
Closed-door proceedings for spying trials are the norm in Russia, and makes it illegal for the press to report on what is going in in the courtroom. If found guilty, Gershkovich faces 20 years in prison.