Dozens of people are expected to gather on March 28 at a plaza in Washington, D.C., to mark the anniversary of the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia and demand his release.

The National Press Club is sponsoring the event to mark one full year in jail for Gershkovich, 32, whose detention was extended to June 30 earlier this week by the Moscow City Court.

Wall Street Journal Associate Editor Paul Beckett, who is leading the newspaper’s efforts to free him, will take part in the Washington event along with Gershkovich’s sister, Danielle Gershkovich.

The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government have vehemently rejected the espionage charges against Gershkovich, saying he was merely doing his job as an accredited reporter when he was arrested on March 29, 2023, in Yekaterinburg.

Gershkovich is one of two U.S. reporters currently being held by Russian authorities. The other is Alsu Kurmasheva, an RFE/RL journalist who holds dual Russian-American citizenship.

Kurmasheva was arrested in Kazan in October and charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent” under a punitive Russian law that targets journalists, civil society activists, and others. She’s also been charged with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

RFE/RL and the U.S. government say the charges are reprisals for her work. She had traveled to Russia for a family emergency and was initially detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport, where her U.S. and Russian passports were confiscated.

Gershkovich has been designated as wrongfully detained by the U.S. government, a designation that provides more dedicated resources in the effort to secure their release.

Kurmasheva, however, has not been designated as wrongfully detained, despite pleas from RFE/RL and from Kurmasheva’s family.

Representatives of RFE/RL and Voice of America will join Wall Street Journal employees and family members at the gathering in Washington on March 28. The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership also plans to take part.

Beckett said other events to mark the anniversary of Gershkovich’s detention include a 24-hour read-a-thon of his work by his Wall Street Journal colleagues at the newspaper’s headquarters in New York and swimming events at Brighton Beaches in New Zealand, South African, Canada, the United States and Britain.

The beaches were chosen in recognition of his family’s connection to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York, which is home to a large Russian immigrant community. Gershkovich’s parents emigrated from the Soviet Union, separately, in 1979.

Kurmasheva is one of four RFE/RL journalists — Andrey Kuznechyk, Ihar Losik, and Vladyslav Yesypenko are the other three — currently imprisoned on charges related to their work. Rights groups and RFE/RL have called repeatedly for the release of all four, saying they have been wrongly detained.

Losik is a blogger and contributor for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service who was convicted in December 2021 on several charges including the “organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order” and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Kuznechyk, a web editor for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, was sentenced in June 2022 to six years in prison following a trial that lasted no more than a few hours. He was convicted of “creating or participating in an extremist organization.”

Yesypenko, a dual Ukrainian-Russian citizen who contributed to Crimea.Realities, a regional news outlet of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, was sentenced in February 2022 to six years in prison by a Russian judge in occupied Crimea after a closed-door trial. He was convicted of “possession and transport of explosives,” a charge he steadfastly denies.