UNITED NATIONS — Lawyers for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich requested a United Nations physique on Tuesday to urgently problem an opinion that he has been arbitrarily detained by Russia on espionage fees that are “patently false.”

The request to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says “Russia has failed to produce a shred of evidence in support of its accusations” for the reason that 31-year-old journalist was arrested on March 29 on a reporting journey to the town of Yekaterinburg, virtually 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) east of Moscow.

“Russia is not imprisoning Gershkovich because it legitimately believes its absurd claim that he is an American spy,” the Journal’s request mentioned. “Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin is using Gershkovich as a pawn, holding him hostage in order to gain leverage over – and extract a ransom from – the United States, just as he has done with other American citizens whom he has wrongfully detained.”

Jason Conti, govt vp and normal counsel of Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal, advised a information convention on the U.N. Correspondents Association the paper hopes for an opinion stating that Russia hasn’t lived as much as its obligations beneath worldwide legislation and urgently demanding his launch.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, comprising 5 unbiased specialists, is a physique of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council. It has a mandate to analyze instances of deprivation of liberty imposed arbitrarily or inconsistently with the worldwide requirements set forth within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has beforehand mentioned it could think about a swap for Gershkovich solely within the occasion of a verdict in his trial. Espionage trials in Russia can final for greater than a yr, and no date has been set.

Gershkovich’s authorized crew in Russia has appealed a Moscow court docket’s choice to increase his pretrial detention till the tip of November.

Paul Beckett, the Journal’s Washington bureau chief, advised reporters that Gershkovich is “doing pretty well under the circumstances,” saying he's younger and wholesome, has been capable of ship and obtain letters, and is visited by his attorneys and sometimes U.S. diplomats.

Gershkovich is the primary American reporter to face espionage fees in Russia since September 1986, when the KGB arrested Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report.

Mariana Katzarova, the primary U.N. particular investigator on human rights in Russia, advised the press convention that Gershkovich ought to be launched instantly as a result of he was arrested “for the exercise of his profession as a journalist.”

Last yr, she mentioned, 16 folks had been convicted on fees of espionage and treason in Russia, however within the first seven months of this yr 80 folks have been charged with treason.

“I think it’s a massive escalation of the use of these charges to really silence independent media, but also any anti-war expression, any independent opinion,” Katzarova mentioned.

She mentioned her first report on the human rights state of affairs in Russia will likely be introduced to the Human Rights Council on Sept. 21.

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