Things are just going from bad to worse for Brittney Griner.
It has been eight months since Brittney Griner has been jailed in a Russian prison over alleged drug charges and we don’t seem any closer to seeing her freedom. Her appeal from the nine-year sentence was denied, which means that the WNBA star is now set to be transferred to a Russian penal colony. At this point, things are about to get so much worse for her.
According to a report by Phil McCausland and Curtis Bunn of NBC News, the conditions Griner is facing once she is transferred are going to be less than ideal.
“Brittney Griner will enter a system of isolation, grueling labor and psychological torment when she is transferred to a penal colony, the successor to the infamous Russian gulag, to fulfill a nine-year sentence, former prisoners and advocates say,” NBC News reported this week.
Griner will likely be subjected to all sorts of abuse in the infamous penal colony:
“Conditions in prisons and detention centers varied but were often harsh and life threatening,” a 2021 State Department report on Russian human rights abuses said. “Overcrowding, abuse by guards and inmates, limited access to health care, food shortages, and inadequate sanitation were common in prisons, penal colonies, and other detention facilities.”
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It was also stated that “physical and sexual abuse by prison guards was systemic” within the colony.
Rumors suggest that her sexual orientation might have actually played a significant role in her detainment.
“Russian prisons are grim, even relative to prisons in other countries. And the Putin regime has ramped up hostility towards gays and lesbians as part of its broader policy of hard-line nationalism,” said Muriel Atkin, a Russian history professor at George Washington University.
Calls for Griner’s release have been loud, but Russia has not made Griner a priority as of now.
