The State Department on Monday officially designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia, nearly two weeks after he was arrested.
The designation, made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, follows a process conducted within the State Department and officially transfers responsibility of the case to the State Department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.
“Journalism is not a crime. We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia, and its ongoing war against the truth,” the State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.
He added that the U.S. government will provide support to Gershkovich and called on the Russian government to immediately release him. The Biden administration and the Wall Street Journal have rejected the claims that Gershkovich was spying.
Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after Gershkovich was taken into custody on March 30 and called on Moscow to immediately release him.
Gershkovich was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, in Yekaterinburg, where he was allegedly trying to gain access to classified information, according to Russian authorities.
The Biden administration has been working since then to gain access to Gershkovich and to get more information about the arrest.