Practically every week after Russian media revealed that Brittney Griner was being held in police custody, treasured little data exists about Griner’s standing. A number of organizations have issued statements in assist of Griner, and Rep. Colin Allred of Texas says he’s working with the State Division to chart a path ahead to safe Griner’s launch. Nonetheless, there has not been a coordinated public effort on behalf of the US authorities, WNBA, and Griner’s different allies.
The choice to maintain Griner’s case non-public could possibly be calculated to keep away from making Griner a political pawn, and it doesn’t imply that there aren’t actors working behind the scenes to deliver the WNBA star residence. Nonetheless, there are some who imagine that the US authorities needs to be doing extra to assist Griner, particularly as a number of hostage conditions involving Individuals overseas mount.
Jason Rezaian, a former hostage in Iran, penned an opinion for the Washington Put up that Griner’s detention is the most recent push for the US to strengthen its response when Individuals are taken hostage:
The U.S. authorities wants a extra sturdy response to those circumstances. It ought to clarify that, if a detention of an American is discovered to be politically motivated, there will likely be swift and extreme penalties. The present, long-standing public method of responding in a diplomatic and noncommittal tone, lest we additional agitate the hostage-taking states, truly ensures the alternative: It leaves our residents languishing in jail, usually for years, and alerts to offenders that they’ll get away with it.
Critically, the US should start to view state hostage-taking as a serial crime perpetrated by the identical actors and develop efficient and credible deterrents.
The Biden administration has been criticized for failing to free extra Individuals held hostage overseas since taking workplace, although Secretary of State Antony Blinken has acknowledged on quite a few events that their secure return is a prime precedence. I’ve little question he feels that approach, however till the U.S. authorities essentially alters its response mechanisms, the issue is unlikely to go away.
Griner is just not the one American at the moment being detained abroad. Rezaian notes the circumstances of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, every of who he says is “unjustly” being held:
Whelan, an worker of an auto elements producer in Michigan who was in Russia attending a good friend’s marriage ceremony, has been imprisoned since late 2018. In 2020, he was convicted of unsubstantiated costs after a secret trial and sentenced to 16 years laborious labor. Reed, in the meantime, has been held in a Russian jail since 2019. He was convicted in a continuing that the U.S. ambassador known as “theater of the absurd.” Each males served within the U.S. armed forces.
The Wall Avenue Journal talked about further cases of Individuals who spent quite a few months in Russian police custody in a narrative concerning the lengthy highway forward for Griner, together with a schoolteacher who stays detained after being arrested on the Moscow airport final summer time for cannabis oil in his luggage. Per the WSJ, Russian investigators may have not less than two months to construct a case towards Griner, and the acquittal price for individuals who’ve been arrested is lower than one %.
Naama Issachar, an Israeli-American who was arrested throughout a connection on the Moscow airport and charged with drug smuggling with lower than 10 grams of marijuana in her baggage, was sentenced and denied her attraction after a six-month authorized course of. She solely earned her launch by way of a pardon from Vladimir Putin.
That kind of precedent is what Rezaian is cautious of as Griner continues to stay in Russia. The USA authorities must be chargeable for her security as a result of the Russian authorized system is just not constructed to do her any favors.
