We add our voice today to the growing chorus of outrage heard across the nation over the misguided conviction and the outrageous 16-year prison sentence meted out last week to American reporter Evan Gershkovich. They resulted from trumped up charges against him in a Russian kangaroo court.

Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen and foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, has been held captive inside a Russian prison since March 2023 on blatantly bogus charges of espionage for the U.S. government. On July 19, the mostly closed-door court proceedings ended with his conviction and imprisonment — without one shred of public evidence to support the tyrant nation’s allegations.

In the Mahoning Valley, the Youngstown Press Club was quick to respond.

“The Russian verdict against Evan Gershkovich is an outrage and a threat to a global free press. The Youngstown Press Club steadfastly agrees that no journalist should ever be arrested and detained for simply doing his or her job. This verdict represents a frightening effect on a free press … ,” the organization of local journalists said in a statement shortly after the conviction.

We agree wholeheartedly. Basic individual liberties that are the bedrock of our American democracy such as freedom of speech and the right to a fair and speedy trial remain foreign concepts in Russia. They’ve become even more foreign since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with the Kremlin using draconian new legislation to silence anti-war voices, particularly those in the Russian media and foreign news outlets. Gershkovich and other persecuted journalists simply found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Following the WSJ reporter’s conviction, the White House issued a statement that the U.S. government has “no higher priority” than seeking the release and safe return of Gershkovich “and all Americans wrongly detained and held hostage abroad.”

We urge officials at the U.S. State Department to intensify negotiations with Russian authorities toward the release of Gershkovich and others with all due speed, not only to free them from unjust captivity, but also to cool the most heated diplomatic relations between the nations since the Cold War ended with the former Soviet Union.

But one light at the end of this dark tunnel has emerged from Gershkovich’s conviction. News reports since his harsh sentencing indicate the Russian government is showing sincere interest in serious negotiations with the U.S. Unfortunately, its focus is on swapping Gershkovich for Russians being held in the West. Specific focus is zeroing in on freeing Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life term in Germany after having been convicted in open court of a brazen daylight assassination of a rebel Chechen militia commander in a Berlin park.

We hope it does not come to that to free Gershkovich as it did for the release of WNBA player Brittney Griner in late 2022. Russia should not be rewarded for its cruel treatment of those who simply seek to report the truth.

And as the U.S. works fervently to secure the release of Gershkovich, it must apply equally firm pressure toward freedom for other Americans held unjustly. Among them is Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen and journalist for Radio Free Europe, who was sentenced on the same day as Gershkovich to 6.5 years in prison on trumped-up charges of disseminating false information about Russia’s military to discredit Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Gershkovich, Kurmasheva, other journalists and all American citizens held captive by Russian madmen deserve the expertise of the highest echelons of this nation’s diplomatic corps to attain their freedom without doing so by trading innocent civilians for fairly convicted murderers and assassins. In those negotiations, efforts also should be made to ensure that journalists from America on duty in Russia to report the truth are never again subjected to such miscarriages of justice.

As the Youngstown Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalism aptly and concisely point out: Journalism is not a crime.