The arrest of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich in Russia on espionage charges should be seen clearly and immediately for what it truly represents: hostage-taking by the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin is engaging in state-sponsored barbarism.
Mr. Putin’s critics and opposition figures have regularly faced violence and death. Brave reporter Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in her apartment building; dissident ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive material in his tea; opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot near the Kremlin walls; anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny and politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Post Opinions contributor, were both targets of serious poisoning attempts and today are unjustly imprisoned.
Mr. Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, and accused — without evidence — of obtaining classified information about "the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” The Journal denied the allegations and demanded his release.
The context here is important. Yekaterinburg is in a region chockablock with military industry. At the outset of the war against Ukraine, Russia introduced criminal punishment for discrediting or spreading false information about any force fighting for Russia in Ukraine, including private military companies such as the Wagner Group. A web of laws and restrictions means that practically anyone can be detained, even on the thinnest pretext. Many news organizations have temporarily relocated out of Russia as a result.
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End of carousel- D.C. Council reverses itself on school resource officers. Good.
- Virginia makes a mistake by pulling out of an election fraud detection group.
- Vietnam sentences another democracy activist.
- Biden has a new border plan.
The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to stop pulling police officers out of schools, a big win for student safety. Parents and principals overwhelmingly support keeping school resource officers around because they help de-escalate violent situations. D.C. joins a growing number of jurisdictions, from Montgomery County, Md., to Denver, in reversing course after withdrawing officers from school grounds following George Floyd’s murder. Read our recent editorial on why D.C. needs SROs.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) just withdrew Virginia from a data-sharing consortium, ERIC, that made the commonwealth’s elections more secure, following Republicans in seven other states in falling prey to disinformation peddled by election deniers. Former GOP governor Robert F. McDonnell made Virginia a founding member of ERIC in 2012, and until recently conservatives touted the group as a tool to combat voter fraud. D.C. and Maryland plan to remain. Read our recent editorial on ERIC.
In Vietnam, a one-party state, democracy activist Tran Van Bang was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison and three years probation for writing 39 Facebook posts. The court claimed he had defamed the state in his writings, according to Radio Free Asia. In the past six years, at least 60 bloggers and activists have been sentenced to between 4 and 15 years in prison under the law, Human Rights Watch found. Read more of the Editorial Board’s coverage on autocracy and Vietnam.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
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Mr. Gershkovich may have been taken because the FSB profited handsomely from the arrest of American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was later traded for the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Can it have been incidental that the arrest came after the Justice Department on Friday indicted an agent for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, who was being positioned to become a deep-cover spy in Washington?
Mr. Gershkovich is not a pawn to be traded. Journalism is not a crime. He should be released immediately.