By Emily Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief
This article was written on July 29, 2024.
There are very few instances in my life where I can say that I have felt as heartbroken as I did on July 19. The release of the verdict in Evan Gershkovich’s sham trial utterly destroyed me. I was left in tears and silence. This was surprising to me considering the fact that Evan’s wrongful conviction is the subject of my 25 page senior thesis paper for which I have been vigorously researching and will continue to until I graduate from Stern College.
It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say. There are millions of thoughts racing through my head about how atrocious his conviction is. Yet, most difficult for me was the realization that as I reflected on what to say, every revelation that came to mind I have already said before.
I have never personally met Evan Gershkovich, yet I have never felt closer to him. As a fellow journalist, I care deeply about reporters around the world who continue to face such threats, and my heart aches to see him locked up in that glass box for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I yearn to know who he is. I want to know his story. I have spent an immense amount of time reading Evan’s articles and learning about him just to grasp onto the threads of what is left of him on our side of the glass – the side that he was once a part of.
I want to see him return to our side of that box immediately.
I continue to learn more and more about Evan all in the pursuit of doing his story justice; I owe it to him, not just as a fellow journalist, but as a human being. As I engross myself in more and more of Evan’s articles, his excellent reporting is evidently astonishing. Evan’s parents were from Russia, and he viewed the country as his homeland, a place he cared about deeply, to the extent that he returned to write about the injustices occurring there despite the threats he knew he faced. Evan exemplified what it means to be brave and to persist, despite the threat of danger, in order to bring justice and accurate reporting to people across the world.
Evan’s resilience and courage are the epitome of the true essence of a journalist. I aspire to be like Evan by bringing justice to this world with every single story that I write. Whenever I see pictures of him online, I see a part of myself in him and I am reminded of exactly why it is that I chose to be a journalist despite the many other paths I could have taken.
As a 32-year-old WSJ reporter who was writing about the Russia-Ukraine war, it is evidently clear that Evan is being used as a pawn in Putin’s attack on freedom of the press and democracy, and his imprisonment is evidence as clear as day that Putin is not scared to outwardly attack the West.
Why then do we continue to comfortably sit here in silence while Evan is not released? How is it that the majority of American citizens are not vocally demanding his immediate return?
On that Friday, I cried not just for democracy, but for Evan. This verdict should deeply affect us all, and not just because it is an outright attack on the free world, but because it is an attack on another human being who has aspirations and dreams just as each of us do. Not only could any of us have been Evan – he is one of us. He is another one of the hundreds of thousands of innocent humans whose lives have been destroyed by such evil in this world.
I will not allow my devastation to silence me. On the contrary, I will channel every single ounce of strength in me to fight until Evan and all other wrongfully convicted journalists are released. Immediately.
I stand with Evan. I am right there in that glass box with him. As long as he is wrongfully detained, I will not be silent. I call on all other journalists and fellow Americans to join me in my fight for democracy. I will never stop writing. I will keep using my words until my voice is loud enough to be heard on the other side of that foggy glass.
Evan’s trial was a sham. His imprisonment is an attack on democracy. The media and Americans must do more to advocate for his release. But you should know all of that already, because Evan’s verdict is just as much of a crime against you as it is against him. I can write all of those things again in this article, but I should not have to. None of this should ever have had to be said in the first place.
Journalism is not a crime. Period.