Brittney Griner is the WNBA star who was arrested at an airport in Russia earlier this year when hash oil was found in her luggage. She has been held in a Russian jail for months and is reportedly being sent to a penal colony.
This is serious. Russia’s penal colonies are extremely harsh and are basically a leftover of the Gulag system created under Stalin.
Some people on the right have pointed to Griner’s left-wing politics, but at a time like this, it is crucial to remember that this is a fellow American.
I feel bad for her and her family that Trump is no longer president. He had a talent for negotiating situations like this successfully.
ESPN has details:
Brittney Griner moving to Russian penal colony; exact location unknownBrittney Griner is being transferred to a Russian penal colony — a move her family has dreaded since Griner’s August conviction on drug charges — but her lawyers don’t know where she is or where she’s heading, her Russian legal team announced early Wednesday in Moscow.The transfer began Friday, her lawyers said, a day after U.S. embassy officials visited her and far ahead of the schedule they had anticipated after Griner’s appeal was denied Oct. 25. Typically, her attorneys had said, a transfer takes weeks or months. Griner’s attorneys and U.S. officials were not aware she had been moved until Tuesday.Griner’s family might not know where she is for some time; according to her lawyers, “Notification is given via official mail and normally takes up to two weeks to be received.”Russian penal colonies are known for having far harsher conditions than the Moscow jail where Griner has been since she was detained in February.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday in a statement that the transfer is “another injustice layered on her ongoing unjust and wrongful detention.”
These places make American prisons look like hotels.
The Biden administration looks absolutely feckless on this. FOX News reports:
“Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in the statement.”As the Administration continues to work tirelessly to secure her release, the President has directed the Administration to prevail on her Russian captors to improve her treatment and the conditions she may be forced to endure in a penal colony,” the statement continued.”The U.S. Government is unwavering in its commitment to its work on behalf of Brittney and other Americans detained in Russia – including fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan,” Jean-Pierre concluded.
This cannot be solved by Twitter hashtag campaigns or pleas from liberal celebrities.
If the Biden administration truly wants to bring this American home, they need to get serious and fast.
Featured image via YouTube.
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