Russian-American journalist Alsou Kurmaseva is in custody in the Russian city of Kazan (west), the media outlet she works for, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a private legal entity funded by the US Congress, announced yesterday on Wednesday.

Ms. Kurmaseva faces prosecution for failing to declare to authorities that she is a “foreign agent” and risks up to five years in prison, according to RFE/RL.

The journalist, who most of the time lives in Prague, had to travel to Russia due to a “family emergency” on May 20, then was placed under temporary arrest on June 2 as she waited for her return flight from Kazan, the same source explained.

Her US and Russian passports were confiscated and she was unable to leave Russia until it was finally announced that she had been prosecuted yesterday.

In a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based NGO, noted that the journalist was in a temporary detention center last night, citing information from the official Tatar-Inform news agency.

CPJ called on Russian authorities to “immediately release” Alsou Kurmaseva and “drop all prosecutions” against her.

“Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmaseva’s arrest is new evidence that Russia is determined to stifle independent journalism,” the NGO said.

Ms. Kurmaseva is the second journalist with American citizenship to be arrested in Russia in 2023. She was preceded by Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich, who was arrested in Moscow on March 19 and faces espionage charges, which the interested party and the newspaper characterize faiders.

According to a statement from RFE/RL, Ms. Kurmaseva is “an experienced journalist who has long covered ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, in the Volga-Ural region of Russia.”