Brittney Griner Headed To Russian Penal Colony, Maybe One Where Kittens Aren’t Tortured In Front Of Her

This is just horrible.

A week before her fellow Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, WNBA star Brittney Griner was taken to a Russian penal colony in Mordovia. Griner was sentenced to serve nine years in the penal colony for the high crime of allegedly possessing two cannabis vape canisters in her luggage. Americans whose kink involves trusting the Russian government will insist that Griner has never denied possessing the vape canisters. However, these people probably don’t pay much attention to our own justice system where suspects often plead out to crimes to avoid a harsher sentence if they go to trial and lose. Fewer than one percent of defendants in Russian criminal cases is acquitted, and that's not because the prosecutors are all Russian versions of Jack McCoy.

Griner did testify at her “trial” that she’s used cannabis for relief for sports injuries and had not intended to break the law. The small cartridges found in her luggage were an honest mistake and hardly the drug smuggling "with criminal intent” for which she was convicted. Her lawyers had asked for an acquittal or at the least a reduced sentence that was proportionate to her offense. The nine years they slapped Griner with is apparently at odds with Russia’s own judicial practice.

 From Reuters:  

Permitted to make a final statement, Griner told the court via video link how stressful her detention and two trials had been.

"I was barely over the significant amount [of cannabis oil] ... People with more severe crimes have gotten less than what I was given," she said.

A Russian court dismissed Griner’s appeal last month, and now she’s an extended guest at Female Penal Colony IK-2 in Yavas, which is about 300 miles southeast of Moscow.

PREVIOUSLY:

 Brittney Griner Pleads Guilty To Drug Charges, Can She Come Home Now? 

   Trump Pretty Sure US Should Let ‘Spoiled’ Brittney Griner Rot In Russian Prison 

“Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolonnikova spent two years in a Russian prison for speaking out against President Vladimir Putin. Here’s what she thinks Brittney Griner will likely face based on her own personal experience.”

— NowThis (@NowThis) 1668660180 

These penal colonies were once known as gulags. They are work camps that straight-up torture prisoners with sleep deprivation, filthy living conditions, and the denial of medical treatment. The inmates are required to work long hours for crap pay. They are assigned tedious manual tasks, such as sewing, but they aren’t whiling away the time making snowflake pillows. The “good news” is that she wasn’t assigned to the notoriously brutal prison colony No. 14 just five miles away. The unfortunate inmates there live among rats who probably also received sham trials. They work 17-hour days at the sewing machines and many lose fingers as a result. (Don’t buy any Russian pillows, by the way.) Inmates reportedly are forced to watch monstrous guards burn kittens alive.

Griner isn’t at the colony with the most documented kitten killing, but the conditions at most Russian penal colonies are significantly worse than even the shabbiest Airbnb. The infrastructure is dilapidated, which can limit access to running water and heat. The colonies are overcrowded and prisoners are packed like sardines in tight quarters with about 50 other people. Russian law requires that each inmate has at least 20 feet of personal space — far less than what the European Convention on Human Rights demands — but their penal colonies don’t even meet those lax standards.

The cramped quarters and poor hygiene make the colonies ideal breeding grounds for disease, specifically tuberculosis and COVID-19. At the worst colonies, inmates manage just four hours sleep a night. The “better” colonies allow inmates a "half an hour to two hours a day” of free time.

Griner’s mental health is quickly deteriorating, according to her wife, Cherelle, who claims she recently had an extremely "disturbing conversation” with her over the phone. All Griner’s loved ones can do now is hope that the United States government can arrange a prisoner swap for Griner, as well as former US Marine Paul Whelan. Russia has shown some interest in trading Griner and Whelan for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death.”

"I want to hope that the prospect not only remains but is being strengthened, and that the moment will come when we will get a concrete agreement," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

"The Americans are showing some external activity, we are working professionally through a special channel designed for this," Ryabkov said. "Viktor Bout is among those who are being discussed, and we certainly count on a positive result.”

Discussions are shaky at best given Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine. We hold out hope, though, that Griner survives this ordeal intact.

[ Reuters / Yahoo ]

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