In mid-February, Brittney Griner was arrested at Sheremetyevo International Airport outdoors of the Russian capital of Moscow and accused of illegally bringing hash oil into the nation. One week later, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine — and since then, Ms Griner has remained in Russian custody.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Ms Griner is within the Correctional Colony No. 1 outdoors of Moscow, a former orphanage rebuilt a decade in the past to function a jail for ladies awaiting trial and ladies serving their sentences. The Russian authorities has not confirmed Ms Griner’s whereabouts.
The Times reported that the ability is artifically lit, with “gray painted halls and grim tall walls” and that Ms Griner can be not the one international nationwide held on the facility often called IK-1 for drug possession lately.
In 2019, Israeli-American Naama Issachar was arrested at a Moscow airport trying to board a connecting flight when Russian authorities discovered a 3rd of an oz of marijuana in her baggage.
Ms Issachar was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years for drug possession and held at Correctional Colony No. 1 — a preview of what Ms Griner could also be going through ought to diplomatic efforts to free her fail.
Ms Griner pleaded responsible to drug expenses on Thursday, a call doubtless influenced by stories that 99 p.c of Russian legal instances lead to convictions.
Ms Issachar was finally pardoned by Russian president Vladimir Putin after ten months and allowed to depart Russia after intense negociations with the state of Israel.
Ms Griner’s state of affairs is difficult by geopolitics: the US and far of Europe have levied sanctions agianst Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, and the US State Department believes that Ms Griner is being held as a political pawn because the invasion drags into its fourth month.
According to Yekaterina Kalugina, a journalist and member of a public jail monitoring group who visited Ms Griner spoke to the Times, inmates at IK-1 spend a lot of their day in isolation. After breakfast in her cell and a quick stroll within the jail yard, Ms Griner spends hours studying — Dostoyevsky in translation was a current alternative — or watching Russian tv. Notably, the jail has a rusty monument to Vladimir Lenin in its courtyard.
In current weeks, Ms Griner and her spouse Cherelle Watson have each begged President Joe Biden and his administration to extend the urgency with which they negotiate for Ms Griner’s launch.
Ms Watson spoke by phone with Mr Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, shortly after a letter handwritten by Ms Griner was delivered to the White House.
“I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Ms Griner wrote. “On the 4th of July, our family normally honors the service of those who fought for our freedom, including my father who is a Vietnam War Veteran. It hurts thinking about how I usually celebrate this day because freedom means something completely different to me this year.”
The White House has mentioned that it’s working dilligently to deliver Ms Griner and different Americans wrongfully detained overseas house. But a lot within the sports activities world really feel that Ms Griner just isn’t getting the therapy she ought to.
“If it was LeBron, he’d be home, right?” Ms Griner’s WNBA coach Vanessa Nygaard of the Phoenix Mercury mentioned this week. “It’s a statement about the value of women. It’s a statement about the value of a Black person. It’s a statement about the value of a gay person. All of those things. We know it, and so that’s what hurts a little more.”
Some worry that Ms Griner’s identities additionally would possibly make her a goal in a rustic that has constantly focused LGBTQ+ folks and Black folks. Ms Griner, who got here out almost a decade in the past, has received an NCAA championship, a WNBA championship, and two Olympic gold medals in her celebrated basketball profession.
Ms Griner’s cell in IK-1 does reportedly have a non-public washroom and a fridge for groceries. Though she is barely allowed to bathe two occasions per week.
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk