Brittney Griner received a nine-year sentence to a Russian penal colony earlier this month. Griner was found with two vape cartridges containing hash oil, something she admitted to doing by accident.
Soon after the news, an image popped up on social media that went viral and had CNN on it.
Here’s more on what the image contained, via USA Today:
“The image shows a CNN logo in the lower right-hand corner. On the right, Griner is pictured near what appears to be the metal bars of a holding cell. CNN news anchor Lynda Kinkade is pictured on the left, apparently mid-sentence.
A chyron extending across the bottom of both images reads: “DNA test ordered by officials to determine male or female prison.”
USA Today reached out to CNN and they made it clear that the doctored photo never ran on its airwaves.
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“This is a fabricated image and did not ever air on CNN,” CNN spokesperson Sydney Baldwin said.
Griner’s legal team has appealed Griner’s conviction. If it’s not overturned, the two-time Olympic gold medalist will serve her sentence at a Russian penal colony. Russian penal colonies are prison labor camps. According to Business Insider, they are “essentially the remnants of the Soviet Union’s infamous Gulag system.”
The WNBA star will be sent to one of many all-female penal colonies.
Some of these labor camps are known as “disease incubators where human rights abuses run rampant.”
