Fans of London's Arsenal football club put up a banner in support of arrested Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Hershkowitz. This is reported by the newspaper Independent.
The banner appeared at the Emirates stadium in the British capital before the English Premier League match between Arsenal and Southampton. It features a portrait photo of Gershkowitz with the hashtag #FreeEvan and the caption «Arsenal fans stand with Evan Gershkovich». Independent writes that the journalist is a fan of the London club.
@Arsenal vanavond. #FreeEvan pic.twitter.com/SkkFK0mvzz
— Derksauer (@derksauer) April 21, 2023
Gershkovich was detained on March 29 in Yekaterinburg. The next day, a court in Moscow sent him to the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. On April 7, the journalist was charged with espionage, which he categorically denied. According to the FSB, a Wall Street Journal correspondent «on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise of the Russian military-industrial complex» (Article 276 of the Criminal Code).
The US State Department assigned Gershkovich the status of «illegal detainee.» US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and US President Joe Biden called for the release of the journalist. Bloomberg wrote that Vladimir Putin personally approved the arrest of Gershkovich at the initiative of high-ranking security officials.