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A Moscow court has shot down an appeal by Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich challenging a decision to extend his pre-trial detention. Gershkovich, 31, was arrested almost six months ago in Russia on spying charges. Russian officials accused him of collecting state secrets about the military. He – along with the Wall Street Journal and the US government – denies these allegations. The decision to extend his pre-trial detention had been made in August. Last week, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Gershkovich’s family called for his immediate release from Moscow’s Lefortovo prison. The Moscow city court on Tuesday upheld its initial ruling. A judge in Lefortovo Court in Moscow extended the journalist’s pre-trial detention until 30 November. The hearing was held behind closed doors. The WSJ journalist will remain in jail until then, reported Russia’s Tass news agency. “The Moscow City Court considered the lawyers’ complaint in a closed court session and decided to remove the material regarding E Gershkovich from appeal consideration, and send the material to the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow to eliminate the circumstances impeding the consideration of the criminal case in the appellate court,” the court said in a statement. It remains unclear why the court refused to consider Gershkovich’s appeal. The case is expected to be returned to a lower court. The 31-year-old American citizen had been granted accreditation by Russia’s foreign ministry to work there as a journalist. He was arrested by agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB, during a reporting assignment in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on 29 March this year. This is the first instance of a Western journalist being arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the end of the Cold War. If Gershkovich gets convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison. According to Russian law, people found guilty of espionage can potentially receive a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. US envoy to Russia Lynne Tracy, who was present in the courtroom on Tuesday, told the media: “The US position remains unwavering. The charges against Evan are baseless. The Russian government locked Evan up for simply doing his job. Journalism is not a crime.” “Evan is fully aware of the gravity of his situation, yet he remains remarkably strong,” she said. To mark Gershkovich’s 100 days in jail since July this year, the White House press secretary said: “The world knows that the charges against Evan are baseless – he was arrested in Russia during the course of simply doing his job as a journalist, and he is being held by Russia for leverage because he is an American.” After visiting the journalist in prison, Ms Thomas-Greenfield said: “No family should have to watch their loved one being used as a political pawn. And that’s exactly what President [Vladimir] Putin is doing. Russia’s actions are beyond cruel, and they are a violation of international law.” US president Joe Biden said in July that he was “serious on a prisoner exchange”. “And I’m serious about doing all we can to free Americans being illegally held in Russia, or anywhere else for that matter, and that process is underway,” he said. “President [Joe] Biden spoke to us and gave us a promise to do whatever it takes” to bring Gershkovich home, his parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, said in a July interview with ABC News. “He told us he understands our pain,” said Ms Milman, the mother of the WSJ journalist. In a letter earlier this month to the UN’s working group on arbitrary detention, lawyers for the WSJ’s publisher accused Mr Putin of using Gershkovich as a pawn and of “holding him hostage.” The lawyers argue that Mr Putin wants to use Gershkovich “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”. The letter said Gershkovich’s ongoing detention “is a flagrant violation of many of his fundamental human rights”. In June this year, nearly three dozen US senators wrote a letter to Gershkovich expressing their “profound anger and concern” over his detention in the Russian prison. The letter said a “free press is crucial to the foundation and support of human rights everywhere” and that every day he spends in a Russian prison “is a day too long”. “We applaud you for your efforts to report the truth about Russia’s reprehensible invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that has resulted in untellable atrocities, tragedies, and loss of life,” the letter read. It said the senators “understand the enormous burden you may feel as the Russian government uses you as a political tool”. Read More U.S. ambassador to Russia visits jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich Father of imprisoned reporter Evan Gershkovich calls on world leaders to urge Russia to free him A new Iran deal shows the Biden administration is willing to pay a big price to free Americans The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Russell Brand has always prided himself on ruffling feathers. Indeed, the ruffle-haired, one-time-winklepicker-championing anti-establishment icon even uses a crow (farting), as the logo for his website and podcast. And yet, his preferred platforms have changed over the years: from London’s stand-up circuit to prime spots on British radio and terrestrial TV, to the Hollywood red carpet, and now to the favourite of every cash-hungry rebel – social media. Yes, the 48-year-old has become a darling of the self-styled “free-speakers” of the internet, with the likes of Andrew Tate, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson name-checking him as a mainstream-fighting compadre. But really, it seems as though his great talent lies not in speaking truth to power, but in speaking so much and at such speed that you no longer remember what the truth was in the first place. Oh, and he also knows how to write a headline that will whet even a great sceptic’s appetite. With this in mind, indy100 has taken a look at some of the most attention-grabbing titles on his YouTube channel, to see what exactly he’s been peddling: 'Covid Tsar Admits Lockdowns Were NEVER About Science'; 'So, Trump Just Said THIS about Vaccines And it Changes EVERYTHING'; 'The Queen’s Funeral – the HIDDEN Truth THAT NOBODY’s TALKING ABOUT'; 'Bill Gates Has Been HIDING This And It's ALL About To Come Out'. Brand is, evidently, a master of clickbait and adoring followers or, as he likes to call them, his “awakening wonders” – who have helped contribute to him having more than 6 million followers on YouTube alone. His articulately spun monologues, which prance along with rhetorical acrobatics and comic asides at the expense of “big business, big media and big government”. And yet, while he’s railing against world powers’ alleged propensity to mislead and deceive the public, he’s showing off his own skills at influencing others. He boasts that he wouldn’t dare tell his viewers what to think, yet in the same breath – or in the same headline – declares that he’s discussing the “truth” – which, by traditional definitions, should refer to objective, irrefutable fact. In one episode, titled, ‘Joe Rogan UNMASKS CNN’s True Agenda’, which is about the US broadcaster’s relationship with Pfizer, he says: “You can decide for yourself whether you think there's a connection between the stance of particular media organisations and the kind of financial partnerships that they have.” However, after playing a reel showing programmes on the network which are “sponsored by Pfizer”, he stresses: “But once you've seen that bloody montage, it's like the scales fall from your eyes surely, don't they?” Oh, but then he quickly adds: “But that's just what I think. What do you think?” Most recently, Brand proved he’d secured the unfaltering loyalty of his fanbase by openly addressing the allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him. In a video titled ‘So, This Is Happening’ and delivered in his usual no-pause-for-breath style, the presenter announced: “This isn't the usual type of video we make on this channel where we critique, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption because in this story, I am the news. “I've received two extremely disturbing letters or a letter and an email, one from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn't be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel. “But amidst this litany of astonishing rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time when I was in the movies, and as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. “Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that. Then almost too transparent, and I'm being transparent about it now as well, and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play?” He then went on to describe previous “coordinated media attacks” targeted at the likes of Joe Rogan. Then, channeling Andrew Tate’s “Matrix” narrative, he continued: “I'm aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, ‘Watch out, Russell, they're coming for you. You're getting too close to the truth.” Finally, after suggesting that a “serious and concerted agenda” had been launched to “control” voices and platforms such as his, he urged his followers to “stay close, stay awake” and, most importantly, “stay free”. His statement was met with an instant flood of support, with one writing: “We support you, [it's] obvious this was going to happen, in fact inevitable.” The only real inevitability here is that his legions of admirers would respond in this way. Birds of a feather flock together, as they say. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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