Russian-American journalist Kurmasheva was also arrested in the Russian city of Kazan, her employer Radio Free Europe/Radio Svoboda (Radio Free Europe) reported on Wednesday, AFP notes.

Alsoa Kurmasheva was charged because she did not declare herself a “foreign agent,” for which she faces up to five years in prison, according to a statement from this private media outlet funded by the US Congress.

The journalist, who usually lives in Prague, was supposed to go to Russia on “family matters” on May 20, and on June 2 she was temporarily arrested before her return flight to Kazan, RFE/RL explains.

Her US and Russian passports were confiscated and she was unable to leave Russia before her charges were finally announced on Wednesday.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement that the journalist was in a detention center on Wednesday night, the official Tatar-Inform news agency reported.

The CPSU also calls on Russia to “immediately release” the journalist and “drop all charges against her.”

“Journalism is not a crime, and the detention of Alsa Kurmasheva is new evidence of Russia’s determination to suppress independent journalism,” the organization said in a statement.

Kurmasheva is also the second American journalist arrested in Russia in 2023, after Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Hershkovich, who was detained in Moscow on March 29 for espionage, denies the charge.

According to Radio Liberty, Alsou “Kurmasheva is an experienced journalist who has long been covering the issues of ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkiria, in the Volga region and the Urals of Russia.”