Posted on 11/12/2022 8:41:03 AM PST by xp38
A member of the Russian feminist group Pussy Riot, who spent almost two years in a penal colony, says she expects WNBA star Brittney Griner will experience labour camp-type conditions as she arrives at an unnamed facility where she could potentially spend the next nine years.In an interview with
National Public Radio, Maria Alyokhina of the Moscow-based feminist protest and performance art group said Griner should expect forced labour, living in barracks with beds for 80 to 100 women, bathing once a week and having very few, if any, amenities.
“For 100 women, there are like three toilets and no hot water,” Alyokhina told NPR, which reached her while on tour in the U.K. “This is a really terrible institution which we received from [the] Soviet Union and it’s totally inhuman,” she said. “The cynical thing is, the work the state provides to the prisoners is sewing uniforms for Russian police and the Russian army,” she claimed.
“This is a legal slavery system. There’s nothing about correction or improvement of people’s behaviour,” she told NPR.
In 2012, Alyokhina was convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred in connection with a protest performance in a church. She received the minimum two-year sentence for the offence, NPR reported at the time.
Figures for Russian incarceration note there were 468,237 imprisoned people in the country, including pre-trial detainees and remand prisoners, in 2020.
Alyokhina encouraged Griner’s supporters to keep voicing concern, writing letters and applying pressure to get her home. At a recent press conference, President Joe Biden said of Griner, “My intention is to get her home,” adding that officials have been engaged in talks on the matter.
Advertisement 4 Article content “My hope is that now that the election is over that Mr. Putin will be able to discuss with us and be willing to talk more seriously about prisoner exchange,” he said.
A statement by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre notes “every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long.” Members of the administration, as directed by the president, plan “to prevail on her Russian captors to improve her treatment and the conditions she may be forced to endure in a penal colony.”
Aloykhina’s view is it’s unlikely Griner will receive any special treatment. “It doesn’t matter the citizenship of the prisoner,” she told NPR, advising the basketball player “to not forget yourself and not lose your freedom.”
This past February, the basketball star was arrested for travelling with a cannabis vape cartridge in her luggage. In August, Griner was sentenced, as well as ordered to pay almost $21,000, after being found guilty of deliberately bringing cannabis-infused vape cartridges into the country, according to Reuters.
Although possessing more than seven grams of cannabis could result in up to two years of “corrective labour,” Reason reports, Russian authorities claimed the basketball star had smuggled a “significant amount” of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.
ESPN noted this week the transfer to the penal colony took Griner’s lawyers and family, as well as U.S. government officials, by surprise.
Her lawyers noted in a statement to CNN on Nov. 9 that “we do not have any information on her exact current location or her final destination,” adding that the standard Russian procedure is to notify by mail the defendant’s attorneys and the U.S. Embassy upon arriving at the destination.
“There’s nothing about correction or improvement of people’s behavior,”
well... if the fear of going back to Prison, in RUSSIA, isn’t enough, just exactly wut does the frunt think would work???
Other than the hard labor part, the J6 inmates aren’t being treated any better.
Nine years? It’s a good thing she didn’t take an unauthorized tour of the Capitol, she’d get twice that.
If this had happened in the U.S., Griner would have been quickly released because there are so many cards that could have been played: the race card, the gender card, the celebrity card, and the LGBT card. None of these work in Russia.
Me too.
Boo f’n Hoo.
some of us caught the joke before you had to tell us it was a joke!
Maybe they will make her the designated overhead light bulb changer. No ladder needed.
HE’s going to be “popular” in that camp...
So....Free Brittney....Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The very same administration that babbles on about trying to get her freed from Russia, is also funneling billions in cash and advanced military gear to Ukraine, in an attempt to defeat Russia in a war that has nothing to do with the US or its interests, other than keeping the dirty money flowing.
The US isn’t even in a proxy war anymore. We have troops on the ground in that country. Sure, all they’re doing is getting accountability of equipment Biden gave Ukraine. As if we’re going to get it back or something? If they’re so worried about the equipment missing, enough to have US troops on the ground...as if they weren’t already there “advising”...then some of that sh*t must already be in the wind.
Anywho, as I stated, we’re trying to defeat the Russian military, depose Putin and implement regime change and begging them to free Griner. Sounds like a plan.
Blinken...Mr Putin, I know that the US just gave Ukraine billions in cash and billions more in military hardware being used against and killing your troops, but we’d really like it if you could find it in your heart to release the US citizen that violated your drug laws. Pretty please”.
Only insane and incompetent Liberals would think that.
Well, I just checked. Then I checked again.
I’m all out of f_cks to give.
If it was Singapore that person might be pining for the fjords.
BUT I bet neither one breaks the law again there, wink*
I predict that hours after the next republican president is elected ( hey, it could still happen) Griner is released. The Iranian hostages were released moments after Reagan took office. Her sentencing is big FU to Joe Biden.
Well stated.
She'll have to wait until 2028, then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.