A Russian court ordered RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva held in pretrial detention until December 5, days after she was arrested on charges of failing to register as a "foreign agent."
The Sovetsky district court of Kazan on October 23 rejected a request by Kurmasheva's lawyer for a pretrial measure that did not include imprisonment, instead assigning her to a detention center until December 5.
Kurmasheva’s lawyer, Edgar Matevosyan, told Reuters the decision by Judge Mars Ganeyev was "too harsh" and that he would appeal it.
"We are deeply disappointed by the outcome of today's hearing," acting RFE/RL President Jeffrey Gedmin said. "We call for Alsu's immediate release so she can be reunited with her family."
SEE ALSO: Russia Detains RFE/RL Journalist Sparking Warnings Of A New Level Of Censorship By MoscowKurmasheva, a Prague-based journalist with RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service who holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, traveled to Russia for a family emergency in May.
She was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan's airport, where both of her passports were confiscated. She has not been able to leave Russia since as she awaited the return of her travel documents.
Authorities on October 11 fined Kurmasheva 10,000 rubles ($103) for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities, according to local media reports based on court documents.
Kurmasheva was detained again on October 18 and charged this time with failing to register as a "foreign agent," a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The Investigative Committee has said that Kurmasheva is suspected of failing "to fulfill the obligation established by the legislation of the Russian Federation to submit to the authorized body documents necessary for inclusion in the register of foreign agents, committed by a person carrying out the targeted collection of information in the field of military, military-technical activities of the Russian Federation, which, when their receipt by foreign sources, can be used against the security of the Russian Federation."
It did not give any further details.
The U.S. State Department has requested consular access to Kurmasheva. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was "deeply concerned" about her detention.
The Kremlin has denied Moscow is engaged in a campaign to persecute U.S. citizens but has not commented further on Kurmasheva's detention.
Russia's detention of Kurmasheva, the second U.S. journalist to be held by Moscow this year, triggered a wave of criticism from rights groups and politicians, who say the move signals a new level of wartime censorship.
Russia has been accused of detaining Americans to use as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March on a charge of spying -- a charge he and the newspaper vehemently deny.
Since 2012, Russia has used its so-called "foreign agent" laws to label and punish critics of government policies. They have also been increasingly used to shut down civil society and media groups in Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The UN Human Rights Office, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the chairman of the U.S. House of Representative's Foreign Affairs Committee have called for Kurmasheva's immediate release.
The "foreign agent" law allows authorities to label nonprofit organizations as "foreign agents" if they receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activities.
RFE/RL says the law amounts to political censorship meant to prevent journalists from performing their professional duties and is challenging the authorities' moves in Russian courts and at the European Court of Human Rights.
More than 30 RFE/RL employees have been listed as "foreign agents" by the Russian Justice Ministry in their personal capacity.
In March, a Moscow court declared the bankruptcy of RFE/RL's operations in Russia following the company's refusal to pay multiple fines totaling more than 1 billion rubles ($14 million) for noncompliance with the law.