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Evan Gershkovich’s pretrial detention extended through late March, one year after his arrest
(JTA) — A Moscow court extended the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich through March 30, meaning he will have spent at least a year behind bars before his trial begins.
Gershkovich, the 32-year-old American son of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union, has been held on espionage charges since March 29, 2023, when he was arrested by Russian agents while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg. Gershkovich, the United States government, and the Wall Street Journal deny the allegations, for which the Russian government has not provided evidence. The U.S. government considers him to be wrongfully held.
The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones, condemned the court’s decision, which was made in a closed hearing on Friday.
“It is chilling and outrageous that Evan has now spent 10 months of his life in prison, simply for doing his job,” their statement said. “While these are clearly sham proceedings about patently false charges, we intend to appeal today’s ruling, as we have in the past. Journalism is not a crime, and we continue to demand Evan’s immediate release.”
Gershkovich is the first American reporter held on espionage charges in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War more than 30 years ago. His arrest came roughly a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine precipitated a crackdown on press freedom in Russia.
At his end-of-year press conference in December, Russian president Vladimir Putin made his first public remarks on the jailed journalist, saying that Russia hopes to reach an agreement to release Gershkovich and U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been held in a Russian prison since 2018.
“It is not that we have refused to return them,” Putin said during the four-hour press conference. “We want to reach an agreement, and these agreements must be mutually acceptable and must suit both sides.”
Efforts toward Gershkovich’s release have focused on a prisoner swap, but the State Department revealed in early December that an offer made to Russia to trade prisoners for Gershkovich and Whelan was turned down.
“It is not easy,” Putin added. “I will not go into details, but in general it seems to me that we are speaking a language that we both understand. I hope that we will find a solution.”
If convicted of espionage, Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in a penal colony. No trial date has been set.
His detainment has mobilized the global Jewish community over the past year, drawing interest and support from Jews and Jewish organizations. That support has occasionally echoed tactics used to draw attention to the plight of Soviet Jews decades ago, such as leaving an empty seat at the Passover seder table. Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish Federations of North America organized a letter-writing campaign to Gershkovich to mark the Jewish new year.
The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, visited Gershkovich two weeks ago in what has now become a monthly meeting.
“Evan remains resilient and is grateful for the support of friends, family and supporters,” the U.S. Embassy to Russia shared on its Telegram account on Jan. 18. “We continue to call for Evan’s immediate release.”
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The post Evan Gershkovich’s pretrial detention extended through late March, one year after his arrest appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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DePaul University Enabled Violent Attacks and Brain Injury on Jewish Students
DePaul University Law School. Photo: ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons.
My name is Brooke Goldstein. I am the founder and executive director of The Lawfare Project, and the founder of the #EndJewHatred civil rights movement. I have dedicated my career to upholding the legal rights of the Jewish people, a fight that is all the more pressing after the wave of Jew-hatred unleashed in America and around the world following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.
In 2021, a few years before October 7, a Jewish student identified a major problem at DePaul University. She went public about “a long history of antisemitism on DePaul’s campus … without DePaul doing anything really substantive to address this situation.”
In a clear call for action, she said that, “DePaul, as an administration and as a university, doesn’t fully understand what is required for Jewish students in particular to feel safe in their campus community.”
The unprecedented wave of hatred launched against Jews and Israelis at DePaul University over the past year is a direct result of the administration’s failure — not just to help its Jewish community feel safe, but to actually keep its Jewish students safe.
Jew-hatred has become systematized in higher education, and we are now seeing the consequences playing out on campuses across the country — including at DePaul University.
Radicalized agitators who openly support foreign terrorist organizations target Jewish students with calls for their genocide.
“From the river to the sea” is a call for genocide.
“Globalize the intifada” is a call for worldwide violent attacks on Jews, like we see in the streets of New York City and Amsterdam, and on campus here at DePaul.
Jews are dehumanized, deprived of the right to openly express their identity, and the civil rights of Jewish students are ignored and violated — their minority status disregarded, and the harm and violence they endure is minimized. All of this is unacceptable.
Max Long emigrated to Israel from Boston in 2015. He served in the Israel Defense Forces, and, when he was released from the reserves, enrolled at DePaul University in March of this year. After seeing the pervasive atmosphere of antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric on campus, he was inspired to use his voice and personal experience to empower and educate his classmates about antisemitism, and about the war against Palestinian terrorism in Gaza.
Michael Kaminsky is a junior who came to DePaul from Buffalo Grove, IL. He, too, has been inspired to use his voice and experience to empower and educate the community about antisemitism, and about Jewish identity. He is a founding member of DePaul’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel, a StandWithUs Emerson fellow, and a proud member of AEPi.
Max and Michael are proud and empowered advocates for Jewish civil rights. They are loud voices for the indigenous rights of the Jewish people in their indigenous homeland — Israel.
On November 6, Jew-haters decided to silence their voices. Two masked men violently attacked Max and Michael with such force that Max suffered a brain injury and Michael suffered a fracture and lacerations.
Max and Michael were doing what they have done many times before — exercising their right to peacefully express themselves and their views, and engage with passersby.
This attack happened in the plain sight of a DePaul public safety officer, who did nothing to intervene. The officer had an opportunity to stop the attack, but did nothing to help Max and Michael.
But it gets worse.
The university was well aware of multiple threats against Max and Michael, just as it was aware of the campus climate of hate targeting Jews. But it did nothing. It failed to protect its students, even when a violent attack was unfolding in front of one of its public safety officers. This cannot be tolerated.
We cannot be silent in the face of intolerance and injustice. This is why The Lawfare Project represents Max and Michael — to demand justice, to ensure that their rights are protected, and to make sure that what they experienced is not experienced by any other Jewish student at DePaul University.
Even now, their attackers remain at large. We demand that the Chicago Police Department use every tool at its disposal to arrest those responsible, and that they be prosecuted for the hate crime they committed, to the full extent of the law. We need to impose meaningful consequences on antisemitic hate crimes to deter future attacks, and to send the clear message that our society rejects this extremist hate and violence.
As for the university, our attorneys are reviewing all options, including legal options, to make sure that the school is accountable not just to Max and Michael for this attack, but to all Jewish students who are under daily threat of similar attacks.
We are here to make sure that DePaul does the right thing, and will take whatever action is necessary to do so.
Jew-hatred has no place at DePaul, or on any college campus. We are demanding action from the school — as all decent people should.
Max and Michael are not alone. Our Jewish students on campus are not alone. We are all here for them, and we will make sure that their rights are protected and upheld.
Brooke Goldstein is the founder and executive director of The Lawfare Project and the founder of the End Jew Hatred movement. She is also an author, award-winning, filmmaker, and regular news television commentator.
The post DePaul University Enabled Violent Attacks and Brain Injury on Jewish Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK Will Arrest Netanyahu With ‘Due Process’ if He Visits, Foreign Secretary Says
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfill the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The post UK Will Arrest Netanyahu With ‘Due Process’ if He Visits, Foreign Secretary Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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How reality TV got real: A review of Emily Nussbaum’s ‘Cue the Sun!’
There’s a trope on sitcoms where characters think they’re being filmed for a reality television show, when in fact what they’re experiencing is real life. (Real life within the fictional […]
The post How reality TV got real: A review of Emily Nussbaum’s ‘Cue the Sun!’ appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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