Generation Z leading widely supported historic protests in Kenya

Recent protests in Kenya that forced the president to dissolve his cabinet have been led by  members of Generation Z, many of whom identify as tribeless and classless. Who are these young protesters? Juma Majanga reports. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.

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Analysts question if Russian political prisoner movements signal imminent swap

Washington — The movement inside Russia of several high-profile political prisoners in recent days is fueling speculation that a prisoner swap with Western countries may be close.

Lawyers and relatives of at least eight individuals say they seem to have been moved from detention facilities across Russia. Those detained had been jailed for criticizing the Kremlin or spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian military.

At the same time, legal action by Belarus and Slovenia on foreign nationals has added to speculation in Western media that a multicountry swap, potentially involving Russia, the United States and Germany, may be in the works.

Among those detained in Russia whose location is currently unknown are former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan; British Russian activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who contributes to The Washington Post; and Liliya Chanysheva, who worked closely with late opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

Whelan is serving a 16-year prison sentence on espionage charges that he denies. His lawyer told the Interfax news agency she cannot contact him, adding, “There are rumors of a possible exchange.”

The Post reported late Wednesday that prison officials had confirmed Kara-Murza had been moved from a prison colony but would not say where he was taken. The columnist is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being accused of treason because he criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine.

While some analysts believe the disappearances may be a sign of an imminent prisoner swap, others, like Russia expert Keir Giles, are more skeptical.

“We need to bear in mind that the people that we see reported are only the tip of the iceberg, and there are so many others that don’t get that worldwide media attention,” Giles, who works at the British think tank Chatham House, told VOA.

“To be disappeared within the system for a period of days or weeks or even longer is not that unusual,” Giles added. “It’s hard to tell what within the Russian prison system is deliberate cruelty and what is simply the result of inefficiency and incompetence, but the net effect, of course, on the victims is exactly the same.”

Navalny, for instance, was abruptly moved in secret from a prison in central Russia to one above the Arctic Circle in December 2023. The move took 20 days, Giles said. The opposition leader died at the prison in February.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry and Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment for this story.

Other political prisoners missing this past week include German Russian citizen Kevin Lik; opposition activist Ksenia Fadeeva; anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko; and critical politician Ilya Yashin.

Their disappearances come on the heels of other developments.

In Belarus on Tuesday, President Alexander Lukashenko unexpectedly pardoned Rico Krieger, a German who had been sentenced to death on terrorism charges. Belarus and Russia are close allies.

And on Wednesday, a Slovenian court sentenced two Russians to time served for espionage and said they would be deported to Russia.

Sergei Davidis doesn’t think the timing can be a coincidence. He is the head of the Political Prisoners Support Program and a member of the board at the Russian human rights group Memorial.

Memorial’s cochair, Oleg Orlov, is among the political prisoners to recently vanish.

“It seems that there is no other reasonable explanation than expectations of some swap,” Davidis told VOA from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin would need to pardon those involved in any potential swap as a formality.

Putin has previously signaled he would be willing to trade Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for a Russian man named Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a Chechen dissident in Berlin.

Gershkovich is one of two American journalists imprisoned in Russia. The other is Alsu Kurmasheva. Both were convicted in secret trials on July 19 on charges that are widely viewed as bogus.

Commenting on remarks made by Putin earlier this year about a possible swap for Gershkovich, Giles said, “It is not a process that is pretending particularly hard to be legitimate. It’s just a straightforward extortion.”

The United States and Russia have been engaging in prisoner swap negotiations for months.

“The United States continues to be focused on working around the clock to work to get our wrongfully detained American citizens home,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told VOA at a Wednesday press briefing.

When asked about any updates on a potential prisoner swap, Patel said he had no updates.

Prisoner swaps are typically cloaked in secrecy.

Although the U.S. government has previously faced criticism for exchanging legitimate Russian criminals for innocent Americans, hostage advocate Diane Foley maintained that it is Washington’s duty to do everything it can to protect its citizens.

“They need to have the moral clarity to recognize that their citizen’s life is their responsibility. It’s their responsibility to do all they can to prioritize that life,” Foley told VOA.

Foley founded the Foley Foundation after the abduction and killing in Syria of her son, American journalist James Foley, in 2014. She says the U.S. has made some improvements in assisting families, but the burden still largely falls on relatives whose loved ones are unjustly held abroad.

Since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has cracked down hard on anything perceived as criticism of the Kremlin, leading to the arrests of scores of activists and journalists. In late 2023, rights group Memorial estimated there were nearly 1,000 political prisoners jailed in Russia.

Saqib Ul Islam contributed to this report.

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Central African Republic declares mpox outbreak, works to stop spread

Yaounde, Cameroon — Central African Republic officials say they are meeting with the governments of neighboring countries in an effort to stop the spread of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox.

An outbreak of the mpox virus has been confirmed in several Central African Republic (CAR) towns and villages, with fresh infections reported this week in Bangui, said one of the country’s health officials.

In addition, the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen 20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths from mpox, mainly among children, since the start of 2023. Over 11,000 cases, including 443 deaths, have been reported so far this year, according to previous reports.

CAR officials say scores of suspected cases also have been reported in nearby Cameroon, Republic of Congo, and Nigeria, provoking fears the disease may spread quickly.

Pierre Somse, CAR’s health minister, said the country’s government is pleading with family heads and community leaders — including traditional rulers and clerics — to inform health officials when civilians show symptoms of or suffer from fever, muscular aches, sore throat, headache or have rashes and large boils on their bodies.

Somse spoke Wednesday on state TV, telling civilians they should avoid contact with wild animals, and wash their hands with soap and water after contact with animals and sick people.

The Central African Republic said health workers have been dispatched to towns and villages where confirmed and suspected cases of mpox have been reported to transport patients and suspected cases to hospitals.

People infected by the virus will be isolated and treated free of charge in hospitals, said Somse.

Health officials are warning civilians against taking suspected patients to herbalists or African traditional healers. They say the lives of civilians and traditional healers who come in direct contact with patients out of hospitals are at risk.

Central African Republic health officials say humanitarian teams are in towns and villages searching for patients hiding due to stigma and the belief that mpox cannot be treated.

On Wednesday, Central African Republic officials said they were coordinating with neighboring countries of the Republic of Congo, Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad to fight the disease.

Maxime Balalou, the Central African Republic’s communication minister and government spokesperson, said the CAR cannot stop the spread of mpox alone because its borders are very porous. He said it is difficult for any central African state to single-handedly control the movement of people, especially cattle ranchers and hunters across the Congo Basin.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.

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Advocates sound alarm over Kosovo’s new media law

Pristina, Kosovo/Washington — Journalists and media advocates are concerned that a new law in Kosovo could give the government greater control.

The new law seeks to license online media, give the Independent Media Commission, or IMC, power to monitor news websites, and increase the number of politically appointed members of the body, which is responsible for the regulation, management and oversight of the broadcasting frequency spectrum in the Republic of Kosovo.

The law includes hefty fines for the media that violate the law, ranging from $215 to $43,000. However, the legislation does not provide details of how the fines will be applied, according to the Media Freedom Rapid Response, which monitors conditions for the media.

First adopted by the Kosovo government in December, the law passed earlier in July, despite criticism. Two opposition parties have said they will refer the case to the Constitutional court.

Among the concerns is the increase in IMC members, all of whom are political appointees. With the Vetevendosje party holding the majority, the expansion has led to concerns that the IMC could come under political influence.

The government has pushed back against criticism. It says that it is seeking only to reform the media landscape.

The chair of the parliamentary committee on media, Valon Ramadani, has previously said the law does not “infringe the independence of media” and described it as an effort to align the country’s media laws with the EU standards.

Critics however say the law could allow for government overreach and expand the authority and the control of the IMC.

The chair of Association of Journalists of Kosovo, Xhemalj Rexha, says the law threatens the plurality of the media in Kosovo.

“This ability to allow many voices to be heard, especially among the Albanian-language media, is an added value, and Kosovo should be proud of it,” Rexha said during an event in Kosovo titled “Regulation or a Threat to the Media Freedom.”

“This is an attempt, among other things, to discourage the media from doing their job through these fines.”

Ardita Zejnullahu from the Association of Independent Electronic Media of Kosovo, also spoke on the panel.

He said the fines and the planned expansion of the Independent Media Commission were the main challenges.

“For a cable operator, a fine of 40,000 euros is negligible. But for a radio, a television or web-based media, which also fall under the Commission’s jurisdiction according to this law, it means their closure,” said Zejnullahu.

“The law does not define the sanctions or the type of violations that will be sanctioned. There is no distinction made between administrative, ethical or technical violations, and they remain at the discretion of the members of the Commission to determine.”

A group of watchdogs, including the Media Freedom Rapid Response, released a statement citing “alarm” over the law.

“Critics have seen the proposed legislation as an attack on the media, expressing worries that the ruling party may use this law to censor them. Now, [with these] risks becoming a reality, with potentially dire consequences for media freedom and independence,” said the statement.

Kosovo ranks 75 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index. Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the index, says that while the country is doing well in some areas, journalists can still be the target of political attacks.

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Russia’s Wagner implicates West, Ukraine in Mali clashes

No evidence has surfaced linking the West to attacks against Wagner, although Ukraine has indicated it provided support to Mali separatists battling Russian troops.

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HRW to Tanzania: Stop forcing indigenous tribes off ancestral lands

Nairobi — Human Rights Watch is accusing Tanzania of forcing indigenous tribes from their ancestral land in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In a report released Wednesday, the rights group documents a Tanzanian government program to move 82,000 people off their land to use it for wildlife conservation, tourism and hunting.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania is a U.N. World Heritage Site managed by the Tanzanian government. For centuries, the Maasai tribe has lived in the area side by side with wild animals. 

In 2022, the government of Tanzania launched a program to encourage the voluntary relocation of the Maasai tribe from the conservation area to Msomera, a town about 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. 

However, what the government called a voluntary relocation plan was far from voluntary, Human Rights Watch says.   

Allan Ngari, the group’s Africa advocacy director, said the forced movement of the people is against the Tanzanian constitution and international law.  

“There are clear violations, including the Maasai people’s rights to consultation, including prior to planning and execution of the relocation, the prohibition of forced evictions, which is happening even for Msomera residents. And then their culture and development has been inhibited,” Ngari said. “So, there’s just a general disregard of the obligations by the government that raises serious concerns about the prospects of any accountability, justice.” 

For the 86-page report, titled “It’s Like Killing Culture,” Human Rights Watch interviewed at least 100 people, including Ngorongoro Conservation Area residents who were resettled.  

Community members say they were not informed about the resettlement plans and that consent was not sought.

In January, government spokesman Mobhare Matinyi said the relocation process was ongoing and on the right track despite some civil societies and others spreading false information. According to local activists, some 8,000 people have been relocated.  

Ngorongoro is home to more than 80,000 people, but since 2021 residents say the government has reduced the availability of essential services in the area like water, land for food production and adequate schools. 

Local media reports the government has denied reducing such services. But Ngorongoro resident Denis Oleshangay said authorities are edging them out of their homes.  

“The government is trying to make the situation uncomfortable, to make them restless, to make the situation hard for the human being to survive, by denying them the right to access all important places for pasture and water,” Oleshangay said. “But as a result of that, many people lost their livestock because now they have not enough place to pasture. The situation in schools, you have no permit to build even a collapsing classroom, build houses.” 

Residents also say government-employed rangers assault and beat them with impunity, and that moving around Ngorongoro has become dangerous.  

Over the years, the Tanzanian government has developed a plan to set aside more land for tourists, wild animals, and game hunting. 

Authorities argue that though they allowed the Maasai to live within national parks, the growth of their population has put them in direct competition with wildlife.   

Ngari of Human Rights Watch said the government needs to discuss its plan with the affected communities and provide necessities to those still residing in the conservation area. 

“We are asking for availability and accessibility of basic services,” Ngari said. “So there needs to be a restoration of funding and resources to the Ngorongoro conservation area. This has been removed by the government.” 

The New York-based group says the government needs to respect the rights of the indigenous people and ensure their survival, well-being, and dignity. 

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Former lead BBC news presenter pleads guilty to 3 counts of making indecent images of children 

London — Huw Edwards, the BBC’s former top news presenter, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of making indecent images of children. 

The offenses he pleaded guilty to at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in central London during a 26-minute hearing involved images shared on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021 by a man who had initially contacted Edwards via social media. 

Edwards, who was the lead anchor on the BBC’s nighttime news for two decades and led the public broadcaster’s coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, has been remanded on bail until a pre-sentencing hearing on Sept. 16. He could face up to 10 years in prison, though the prosecution conceded that a suspended sentence may be appropriate. 

The court heard that Edwards, 62, was involved in an online chat with an adult man on the messaging service who sent him 377 sexual images, of which 41 were indecent images of children. 

The images that were sent included seven of what are known as “category A,” which are the most indecent. Of those, the estimated age of most of the children was between 13 and 15, but one was aged between 7 and 9. 

The court also heard that the unnamed male asked Edwards on Feb. 2, 2021 whether what he was sending was too young. Edwards told him not to send any underage images. Five more, though, were sent, and the exchange of pornographic images continued until April 2022. 

“Accessing indecent images of underage people perpetuates the sexual exploitation of children, which has deep, long-lasting trauma on these victims,” said Claire Brinton of the Crown Prosecution Service. 

Speaking in Edwards’ defense, his lawyer Philip Evans said there is “no suggestion” that his client had “in the traditional sense of the word, created any image of any sort.” 

Edwards, he added, “did not keep any images, did not send any to anyone else and did not and has not sought similar images from anywhere else.” He added that Edwards had “both mental and physical” health issues and that he is “not just of good character, but of exceptional character.” 

Prosecutor Ian Hope told the court that Edwards’ “genuine remorse” was one reason why a suspended sentence might be considered. Setting out the potential penalties under the law, he said that where there is the prospect of rehabilitation, a community order and sexual offender treatment program could be considered as alternatives to prison. 

A spokesperson for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said there should be “no doubt” about the seriousness of Edwards’ crimes. 

“It can be extremely traumatic for young people to know sexual images of themselves have been shared online,” the spokesperson said. “We also need to see online platforms do much more to identify and disrupt child abuse in private messaging services in order to safeguard young people.” 

Edwards, who was one of the BBC’s top earners, was suspended in July 2023 for separate claims made last year. He later resigned for health reasons. 

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India-China Military Tensions Persist Even as Their Trade Surges 

New Delhi — As tensions between India and China persist with tens of thousands of soldiers confronting each other along their disputed Himalayan borders for a fifth year, analysts say they see few signs of a reduction in military tensions between the Asian rivals despite calls from both sides to stabilize ties. But trade between the two countries has surged.

“The ground reality is that the Chinese are focusing on building infrastructure in the Himalayas to enhance their conventional deterrence capabilities. They are building roads, bridges and other military-related construction. That is a huge concern for India,” Srikanth Kondapalli, dean of the School of International Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University told VOA.

Ties between the Asian rivals nosedived sharply following a clash in June 2020 between their soldiers. Backed by heavy artillery and fighter jets, an estimated 50,000 troops from each side still remain amassed at hotspots in the Himalayas, where they share a long, poorly demarcated border.

“I have to be honest, our relations with China are not doing very well,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday where he was attending a Quad meeting. “They are not good; they are not normal right now.”

Jaishankar’s remarks came days after he met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of a summit meeting of the ASEAN bloc in Laos last week where both sides emphasized the need to normalize ties.

In a statement after the meeting, Wang said that “it is in the interests of both sides to get China-India relations back on track.” Jaishankar spoke of the need to address their bilateral issues “with a sense of purpose and urgency.”

But analysts point out there are no signs of de-escalation along the borders. Although soldiers withdrew from several conflict areas between 2020 and 2022, there has been little progress in resolving their disputes at other friction points that are claimed by both sides.

“We have had 21 meetings between military commanders from the two countries since the clash four years ago to resolve the issue, but progress has been marginal,” Kondapalli pointed out.

Even as the Indian and Chinese Himalayan border continues to be volatile, India’s imports from China have grown steadily despite strict curbs that New Delhi imposed on economic ties with China following the 2020 clash.

India had stepped up scrutiny of Chinese investments, blocked virtually all Chinese visitors, halted major Chinese projects in the country and blocked Chinese apps like TikTok.

Despite those restrictions, Beijing emerged as New Delhi’s top trading partner last year. India’s imports from China stood at more than $100 billion last year. India’s exports to China on the other hand were only $16 billion.

“When India put these curbs in 2020, the government strategy was that we should reduce our import dependence on China,” said Biswajit Dhar, trade analyst and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. “But that has not happened, so that strategy has come to grief and now there is a realization that there is no running away from the fact that it is difficult to decouple from China, which remains the world’s largest manufacturer.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led a push to make India an alternative manufacturing hub to China and companies like Apple have set up production facilities in the country in recent years. But several industries, including new factories coming up in the country remain reliant on imports from China, including machinery needed in manufacturing.

Industry groups have called on the government to relax strict visa curbs on Chinese nationals as they say they need Chinese engineers and technicians to install equipment and train Indian workers. New Delhi is considering speeding up visas for Chinese workers, according to media reports.

However, the government said it will not relax its curbs on Chinese investments after its Economic Survey, which highlights policy initiatives, argued in favor of attracting Chinese funds to address India’s growing trade deficit.

“To boost Indian manufacturing and plug India into the global supply chain, it is inevitable that India plugs itself into China’s supply chain. Whether we do so by relying solely on imports or partially through Chinese investments is a choice that India has to make,” the Economic Survey, released last week, stated.

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal however told reporters that there will be no rethink on Chinese investments.

While China says the two countries should resume normal exchanges even as they continue discussions on their territorial disputes, India maintains that putting ties back on track will be contingent on resolving the border standoff.

Analysts say New Delhi faces a dilemma. “The question is will India stick to its stand of not normalizing ties until the border issues are settled or whether they will modify their strict economic policy toward China,” according to Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research foundation in New Delhi told VOA. “But there is a growing feeling that we are boxed into a situation which is not comfortable for us.”

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Rescuers search through debris as deaths rise to 151 India landslides

NEW DELHI — Hundreds of rescue workers searched through mud and debris Wednesday from multiple landslides that have killed at least 151 people in southern India, police said.

The multiple landslides occurred after torrential rains triggered torrents of mud and water that swept through tea estates and villages.

Another 186 people were injured by the landslides that hit hilly areas in Kerala state’s Wayanad district early Tuesday, flattening houses, uprooting trees and destroying bridges, said police officer Aijaz, who uses one name.

P.M Manoj, a spokesman for the state’s top elected official, said that 187 people were unaccounted for. Seventy-seven bodies have been identified so far and mostly handed to their relatives, he added,

More than a dozen bodies were found overnight, Aijaz said, as over 300 rescuers worked to pull out people stuck under mud and debris, but blocked roads and unstable terrain hampered their efforts.

The first landslide occurred at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, followed by another two hours later. Several areas, including Meppadi, Mundakkai and Chooralmala, were isolated, and roads were washed away causing immense damage to homes, said Kerala’s top elected official, Pinarayi Vijayan.

“Efforts to locate missing persons continue with all available resources,” their statement said.

Mundakka is in an area highly prone to disasters. However, the gushing soil, gravel, and rock reached the town of Chooralmala, 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) away.

Manoj said more than 8,300 people have been moved to 82 government-run relief camps. The government is ensuring food delivery and essential items to the relief camps.

Authorities sent vehicles carrying 20,000 liters of drinking water to the disaster area. Temporary hospitals are being set up, the statement said on Tuesday night.

The Press Trust of India news agency said more than 300 houses were destroyed in Mundakkai and Chooralmala areas.

Local media reported that most of the victims were tea estate workers. Television footage showed rescue workers making their way through mud and uprooted trees to reach those who had been stranded. Vehicles swept off the roads were seen stuck in a swollen river. Local TV news channels also aired phone calls from stranded people asking for help.

Authorities mobilized helicopters to help with rescue efforts and the Indian army was roped in to build a temporary bridge.

“We are trying every way to rescue our people,” state Health Minister Veena George said.

In a post on social media platform X, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed by the landslides in parts of Wayanad,” a hilly district which is part of the Western Ghats mountain range.

“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones and prayers with those injured,” Modi wrote. He announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($2,388) to the victims’ families.

India’s weather department has put Kerala on alert as the state has been lashed by incessant rains. Downpours have disrupted life for many, and authorities closed schools in some parts Tuesday.

Kerala, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations, is prone to heavy rains, flooding and landslides. Nearly 500 people were killed in the state in 2018 in one of the worst floods.

The Indian Meteorological Department said the state has had heavy rainfall over its northern and central regions, with Wayanad district recording up to 28 centimeters (11 inches) of rain on Monday and Tuesday.

“Monsoon patterns are increasingly erratic and the quantum of rainfall that we receive in a short spell of time has increased. As a result, we see frequent instances of landslides and floods along the Western Ghats,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

Koll also said authorities must check on rapid construction activities happening over landslide areas.

 

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An ‘Undue Burden’

Prague/Washington  — Portraits of Alsu Kurmasheva are scattered throughout the Prague apartment she shares with her husband and two daughters. But the journalist has not set foot here in more than a year.

Perhaps the most striking of the paintings, all of which were done by her husband, Pavel Butorin, is the one that remains unfinished, perched on an easel in the living room. Butorin started it after Kurmasheva, 47, was jailed in Russia in October 2023 on charges that are widely viewed as baseless and politically motivated.

Painting, Butorin says, is just one way he has tried to cope with his wife’s absence.

“Even to say, ‘We miss Alsu,’ doesn’t quite convey the emotion that we go through,” Butorin told VOA at the family’s home. “I get up, and the first thing in my head is Alsu. I’ve just been really unable to escape this.”

With their lives intertwined — from raising their daughters Bibi and Miriam, to working at the same news network — he is never far from reminders that his wife is 1,700 miles away, in a prison in the city of Kazan.

“In the evening, we sit at this table. We see an empty chair,” Butorin said, his eyes fixed on the seat at the large, wooden table, as if he were willing his wife to appear. “It signifies a broken family, a family torn apart by an unjust, merciless, heartless regime.”

When Butorin spoke with VOA in Prague in July, his wife — who has dual U.S.-Russian citizenship — was approaching nine months in custody. Less than one week later, on July 19, she was convicted behind closed doors of spreading what Moscow says is false information about its military and sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

On the same day, about 450 miles east, in the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, a secret Russian court convicted American journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years behind bars.

The U.S. government has called for the immediate release of both journalists. Press freedom groups, meanwhile, have condemned the trials as shams and said the cases underscore how Moscow’s war in Ukraine means American journalists are at a heightened risk of being used as political pawns by the Kremlin.

Kurmasheva and Gershkovich count themselves among the 22 journalists jailed in Russia at the end of 2023, more than half of whom are foreign nationals, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry and embassy in Washington did not reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment for this story.

Despite the international condemnation, Butorin has largely shouldered the responsibility of advocating for Kurmasheva’s release by himself. For months, he has found himself balancing the roles of father, journalist and advocate as he shuttles between Prague and Washington.

Hostage experts say his experience is common for American families who have a loved one held hostage or unjustly detained.

A decade ago, Diane Foley was one of them as she tried to navigate complex bureaucracy and conflicting information when Islamic State militants kidnapped and later killed her son, American journalist James Foley, in 2014.

Her experience led her to establish the Foley Foundation, which supports families and advocates for Americans unjustly jailed abroad.

“A lot of families don’t have any idea how to contact media or get their story heard, how to contact their congressman, how to get their voices heard through the bureaucracy. So we seek to help them navigate that,” she told VOA during one of her regular trips to Washington.

The U.S. government has made progress in these policy areas, she says. But so much more still needs to be done.

A longtime journalist at the Tatar-Bashkir Service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL, Kurmasheva had planned only a brief visit to Russia to care for her ailing mother.

Her desk at work remains relatively untouched. Business cards are still spread out on the table. And the calendar — still set to May 2023 — shows where she underlined in black ink the dates of the ill-fated trip.

In the weeks following Kurmasheva’s jailing, her colleague Ramazan Alpaut said he still turned around at his desk, half-expecting to see Kurmasheva sitting behind him.

“We miss her here as a person and as a colleague,” he told VOA.

Kurmasheva’s arrest came as a shock for the team, and a warning that travel to see family in Russia is no longer an option.

That fact, says Tatar-Bashkir Service chief Rim Gilfanov, crystallizes an already difficult reality for exiled Russians grappling with the fallout of the war in Ukraine.

But more immediately, he says, he just wants a key member of his team back.

“Alsu is our veteran journalist,” Gilfanov says. “The main quality that comes to my mind when I think of Alsu is constant eagerness and preparedness to help everyone.”

Authoritarian regimes have long targeted RFE/RL and its journalists. Russia has designated the outlet a foreign agent and an undesirable organization. And Kurmasheva is one of four of its journalists currently in prison, including two in Belarus and one in Russian-occupied Crimea.

“It’s a grim reality that starts to set in that we are targets,” RFE/RL president and CEO Stephen Capus told VOA. “They’re trying to make the pursuit of journalism a crime.”

“They are taking me to the investigative committee right now.”

Butorin was at work when he got this distressed voice message from his wife. It was October 18, 2023, and agents dressed in black and wearing balaclavas had arrived at the home of Kurmasheva’s mother to arrest the journalist.

The next time he heard his wife’s voice was in April 2024, when she spoke to reporters from a glass defendant’s box about the poor prison conditions she was experiencing.

“We love to hear her voice. But it’s also painful to see her in a glass cage,” Butorin said.

Butorin, director of Current Time TV, a Russian-language television and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA, was at work when he listened to the message.

His office is now part shrine, filled with photos and posters and newspaper articles about his wife. On the whiteboard, Free Alsu magnets depict a cartoon of her face. Butorin drew the image for Kurmasheva’s Gmail profile picture, he said. Now it’s on magnets and buttons — like the one pinned to the lapel of his dark blue suit jacket this July afternoon.

In a corner, next to a Lego diorama of the set of the TV show “Seinfeld” — a series the family loves to watch — is a stack of copies of No to War. The book, which Kurmasheva helped edit, features stories of 40 Russians who opposed Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Pro-Russian media have reported that Kurmasheva’s arrest is linked to that book. But to date, authorities have failed to publicly provide evidence to substantiate its charges against her.

“It’s a harmless little book,” Butorin said. “It just reminds me how incredibly arbitrary this detention is.”

Butorin has spent an unknown number of hours thinking about his wife’s captors. Are they evil personified? Or, à la Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil, are they just bureaucrats “thoughtlessly” doing their jobs?

The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle, he recognizes, but Butorin still finds himself wondering whether the judges and prosecutors once listened to her deep voice on the radio, back when she hosted a show for audiences in Tatarstan.

Kurmasheva’s long absence has been marked by bittersweet birthdays and holidays, more media interviews than Butorin can count, and five trips to Washington to press lawmakers and U.S. government officials to do more for his wife.

In his office, just a few days before he departs for one of those trips, he admits that, like many journalists, he prefers to be behind the camera instead of being the story.

But that preference for privacy is no more.

“I fear if I don’t keep this story in the news, and if I don’t keep Alsu’s story alive, that U.S. policymakers, members of the administration, of any administration, will just start forgetting about her,” Butorin said. “I see a problem there.”

Butorin, who is also a U.S. citizen, is quick to voice appreciation for the support officials and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have offered. It turns out that press freedom is one of the few issues that Democrats and Republicans can agree on.

But the trips to the American capital are also stained with frustration.

Requests to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been denied, Butorin said. (Blinken also serves as an ex officio member of the board that oversees the entities under the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including RFE/RL and VOA.) To date, the highest-ranking official Butorin has met with is Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter.

Feeling optimistic can be difficult, Butorin said, when, in meeting after meeting, the same officials regurgitate the same talking points and offer little concrete information.

“Sometimes I walk out with a sense of desperation, and sometimes I find these meetings very unsatisfactory,” he says.

It’s a problem familiar to Diane Foley.

When Islamic State militants kidnapped her son in 2012, she says, the process was even more opaque.

“Our government doesn’t seem to trust these desperate families, who want their loved one back, with what information they have,” she said.

To Foley, “an undue burden” is still placed on families to fight for the U.S. government’s attention.

“It’s all on the family in the U.S. That hasn’t changed a whole lot,” she said. “It was all on me, all on our family, when Jim was taken — all on us to figure it out. And now it’s still all on the family.”

Foley and her foundation are helping Butorin navigate the process, including by working behind the scenes to push the State Department.

In that time, she has grown close to the couple’s daughters. “When I see Bibi and Miriam, God bless them. They shouldn’t, as teenagers, be dealing with this,” she said.

In late July, she and Butorin took part in a Foley Foundation event in the Capitol Building, to mark the release of its annual report on U.S. hostage policy. The foundation counts 46 Americans held hostage or unjustly detained around the world.

At the panel, Dustin Stewart, the deputy special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, spoke about the support the government offers.

Butorin rebutted that because Kurmasheva has not been declared wrongfully detained, his family is not receiving any of that support.

At the panel, Stewart told VOA, “On the process, I’ll just say, it’s ongoing.”

The designation opens up extra resources and support for families and commits the government to secure their release.

It is the biggest difference between the cases of Kurmasheva and Gershkovich, the other American journalist jailed in Russia. In the latter case, the United States declared The Wall Street Journal reporter wrongfully detained within two weeks of his arrest. Press freedom groups have criticized the State Department for not declaring Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, too.

When pressed as to if and when Kurmasheva will be designated, the State Department has on several occasions sent VOA identical or nearly identical statements that say the Department “continuously reviews the circumstances” of Americans detained overseas to determine if they are wrongful. Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, has denied VOA’s multiple requests for an interview about Kurmasheva’s case.

To cope, Butorin says compartmentalizing has become a necessary strategy.

“It may come across as a little disingenuous, but you do have to treat all these little areas of your life as projects,” he said. Those “projects” range from calling on Blinken to declare his wife wrongfully detained to dealing with the “Kafkaesque bureaucracy” of the Czech postal system that prevents him from collecting his wife’s mail.

In public events and interviews, Butorin leans toward the stoic, which he notes is unlike Kurmasheva, who can go into a room and “walk away with five or 10 new friends.”

“Some people may think that I lack emotion,” Butorin said. “But it’s all a front. I’m hurting on the inside.”

It’s when Butorin is by himself that he says he feels the most pain. “When the girls go to bed, I usually go to bed soon, too,” Butorin said, “so I’m not left alone with my thoughts.”

And when he is with the couple’s daughters, there are glimpses of the joy and the humor the family still manages to share.

After an interview in Washington, Butorin excitedly showed videos from an Olivia Rodrigo concert he attended with his daughters. Nearby, Bibi, 16, and Miriam, 12, were writing postcards to friends in Prague. Butorin made fun of one of them for how she wrote the number seven.

“You cross your sevens? That’s un-American,” he said with a smirk, provoking laughter from both girls.

When Kurmasheva eventually returns, Butorin quipped that she will find their daughters taller than she is. “But more importantly, she will see very strong young women who have had to grow up really quickly,” he said.

Sometimes, when Butorin sees videos or photos of his wife in court, he finds himself wondering whether she’s still the same person. In any case, he and his daughters aren’t.

“It’s hurting my family a lot that my mom isn’t here with us,” Bibi said. “It’s been so long already, and we just don’t want to get used to our mom not being here, because we’re getting close to that, unfortunately.”

Back in the family’s Prague apartment, the teenager alternates between talking about Taylor Swift and calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release her mother. On the wall opposite her, an abstract painting by her father depicts Kurmasheva pregnant with Bibi.

“At the dinner table, I always feel like there’s something missing because she’s not there. And it’s weird having to cook for one less person. And it’s weird being in the car with one less person. And it’s weird, because we were always a family of four. And now there’s one of us missing,” Bibi said.

Butorin doesn’t like to dwell on the past, and by that he primarily means Kurmasheva’s decision to travel to Russia in the first place. They were both well aware of the risks, he said.

She had traveled there without incident in 2022. But the day she left in 2023, he recalls Kurmasheva saying to him, “Tell me everything will be OK.”

Some days, Butorin wishes he hadn’t let her go. But then, Kurmasheva wouldn’t be Kurmasheva if she hadn’t gone.

“She is known as a selfless friend,” Butorin said. “That empathy and her responsibility as a devoted daughter, that was what really drove her to go to Russia.”

Bibi agreed. “She pays attention to every single person around her, and she’s really willing to give up so many things about her and her life to help others.”

As the family waits for any progress in her case, Butorin channels his wife’s unselfishness and his daughters’ resiliency.

“I don’t have the luxury of just falling apart. Honestly, that’s not an option for me,” Butorin said. “It’s just something that we have to live with. I think I’m a fairly unremarkable person. It’s just something that a father — any father — I think would do.”

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