The odds for justice in Vladimir Putin\u2019s authoritarian Russia are already slim\u2014and especially, we may assume, for a dreadlocked African American icon of the international LGBTQ community. But the war in Ukraine and the geopolitical rivalry between Moscow and Washington are now explicitly at play in the case of basketball superstar Brittney Griner.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s more than four months since Griner was\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0at the Moscow airport, allegedly in possession of an undetermined number of cannabis-oil vape pens. Orders for her pre-trial detention have been repeatedly extended\u2014most recently for six months on June 27. Finally, on July 1, her\u00a0trial opened<\/a>\u00a0at a court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki.\u00a0<\/p>\n Griner showed up wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt<\/a>, and was told that she would have to wait to file a plea. It was also revealed that she is charged with possession of just two vape cartridges, which contained 0.252 grams and 0.45 grams of hash oil. That would seem to exclude charges of \u201clarge-scale\u201d trafficking (the worst-case scenario), but she could still face prison time under the notorious Article 228<\/a> of the Russian penal code, which outlaws \u201cthe making, acquisition, storage, transportation, sending, or sale\u201d of illegal drugs in any quantity, and has often been used for purposes of political persecution<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Phoenix Mercury <\/a>WNBA star, who had been playing a season for Russia\u2019s UMMC Ekaterinburg<\/a>, could face 10 years in prison if convicted on dubious charges of \u201clarge-scale\u201d transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted. And unlike in the United States, acquittals can be appealed by the prosecution and reversed. Russia has the highest number of people per capita imprisoned for drug offenses in all of Europe, with some 100,000 behind bars on Article 228 violations.<\/p>\n So that would be bad enough, even if Griner\u2019s arrest hadn\u2019t come less than a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, plunging the world into crisis and bringing US-Russia tensions to a fever pitch not seen even during the peak of the Cold War.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In May, the US State Department officially\u00a0designated<\/a>\u00a0Griner as \u201cwrongfully detained.\u201d This means Washington isn\u2019t just going to wait for her case to play out in the Russian courts but commits to actively negotiate for her release. Griner\u2019s case has been\u00a0assigned<\/a>\u00a0to the US Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA<\/a>), Roger Carstens.<\/p>\n The SPEHA played a key role in securing the release<\/a> of US citizen and Marine veteran Trevor Reed from Russia in April. Detained for over two years on charges of confronting a police officer (which he denied), Reed had gone on hunger strike<\/a> at the penal colony where he was being held. Reed was swapped<\/a> for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot sentenced in 2011 for drug smuggling.<\/p>\n But there has seemingly been no progress for Griner since the designation.\u00a0<\/p>\n On June 20, racial justice activist group\u00a0Until Freedom<\/a>\u00a0led a \u201cFree Brittney Griner\u201d march and rally in New York\u2019s Harlem. Demonstrators chanted Griner\u2019s name as they marched from the iconic Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building to the\u00a0Harriet Tubman Memorial<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/a>\u00a0reported, Khristina Williams, founder of\u00a0GirlsTalkSportsTV<\/a>, told the crowd: \u201cWe want to make sure we keep her name out there. When it comes to Black women, but especially Black queer women in America, there isn\u2019t a lot of support. We want to continue to keep that story out there and bring it more attention.\u201d<\/p>\n Brittney\u2019s wife, Cherelle Griner, had her faith in the State Department sorely tested on June 18. That was the couple\u2019s fourth anniversary, and a phone call had been arranged\u2014their first since Brittney\u2019s arrest. The call between the Russian jail and their Phoenix home was to be patched through the US embassy in Moscow. But the date happened to fall on a Saturday, when the embassy is closed. Apparently, this hadn\u2019t been thought of in advance, and nobody was there to patch through the call as Cherelle attempted some dozen times over several hours.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That Monday, the State Department issued a statement saying that \u201cwe deeply regret that Brittney Griner was unable to speak with her wife because of a logistical error.\u201d<\/p>\n But Cherelle Griner told the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0she was \u201cvery pissed\u201d about the foul-up. She added: \u201cI have zero trust in our government right now. If I can\u2019t trust you to catch a Saturday call outside of business hours, how can I trust you to actually be negotiating on my wife\u2019s behalf to come home? Because that\u2019s a much bigger ask than to catch a Saturday call.\u201d<\/p>\n There is speculation that Brittney Griner may be paired with other Americans held in Russia if some kind of swap is worked out. On June 18, the same Khimki court that\u2019s hearing Griner\u2019s case\u00a0sentenced<\/a>\u00a0a former member of the US diplomatic staff to 14 years in prison for \u201clarge-scale\u201d cannabis smuggling. (Russian law\u00a0defines<\/a>\u00a0a \u201clarge amount\u201d as 100 grams, about 3.5 ounces, or more.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Marc Fogel had previously worked at the US embassy in Moscow but was employed as an English teacher at the city\u2019s\u00a0Anglo-American School<\/a> at the time of his arrest. He was similarly\u00a0detained<\/a>\u00a0at the airport, allegedly with an unspecified quantity of cannabis, last August. Fogel, whose lawyer said had only carried 17 grams (0.6 ounces), was a registered medical user in the US following back surgery. He said he was unaware that Russia doesn\u2019t recognize any right to medical marijuana.<\/p>\n Others\u00a0speculate<\/a>\u00a0that Griner could be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former US Marine and private security firm director who was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years for espionage\u2014a charge Washington rejects as a frame-up.<\/p>\n Any putative negotiations by definition must take place behind closed doors. But the lack of any outward sign of progress is frustrating for Griner\u2019s loved ones and supporters. Griner\u2019s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, appealed to President Biden and Vice President Harris for speedy action to bring Brittney home in a June 29\u00a0tweet<\/a>: \u201cThe negotiation for her immediate release regardless of the legal proceedings should remain a top priority and we expect @POTUS and @VP to do everything in their power, right now, to get a deal done to bring her home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And Cherelle Griner told\u00a0Good Morning America<\/a>\u00a0on June 1 that she wanted to speak directly with Biden. \u201cI keep hearing he has the power, she\u2019s a political pawn,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they\u2019re holding her because they want you to do something, then I want you to do it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But that something could turn out to be pretty odious.\u00a0Russian news media have repeatedly\u00a0speculated<\/a>\u00a0that Griner could be traded for a Russian arms dealer imprisoned in the US. Viktor Bout, dubbed the \u201cMerchant of Death,\u201d is serving a 25-year term for aiding a terrorist organization and conspiracy to kill US citizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bout,\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0by both the UN and human rights groups of violating multiple arms embargos, was\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0at a five-star hotel in Bangkok in March 2008. Thai authorities acted\u00a0at the behest<\/a>\u00a0of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. A former KGB officer, Bout allegedly sold arms to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Colombia\u2019s FARC guerillas and warring sides in several African conflicts. His activities were chronicled in a book,\u00a0Merchant of Death<\/em><\/a>, by Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, and he was also the reported inspiration for a 2005 film,\u00a0Lord of War<\/em><\/a>, in which he was played by Nicholas Cage. The book claimed that planes from the Bout\u2019s fleet made several airdrops of weapons to the FARC in 1998 and 1999. He was\u00a0extradited<\/a>\u00a0to the US in 2010, and\u00a0conv<\/a>i<\/a>cted<\/a>\u00a0the next year\u2014over the\u00a0bitter objections<\/a>\u00a0of Moscow.\u00a0<\/p>\n Secretary of State Antony Blinken,\u00a0asked on CNN<\/a>\u00a0June 26 whether a joint swap of Griner and Whelan for Bout was under consideration, neatly dodged the question.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs a general proposition\u2026I\u2019ve got no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,\u201d Blinken said. But he added: \u201cI can\u2019t comment in any detail on what we\u2019re doing, except to say this is an absolute priority.\u201d<\/p>\n Trading a death merchant such as Bout for someone convicted of possessing cannabis vape pens is an obvious moral absurdity. Driving home the bitter irony,\u00a0video footage<\/a>\u00a0shows that at the time of her arrest at the airport in February, Griner was wearing a jacket with the words \u201cBLACK LIVES FOR PEACE.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And the contradiction is heightened by the inevitable notion that Griner was set up in a cynical stratagem by the Russian intelligence services. On the June 28 broadcast of ABC\u2019s\u00a0The View<\/em><\/a>, co-host Joy Behar suggested that the vape pens were planted in Griner\u2019s luggage.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow do we know this white man Putin didn\u2019t have his operatives plant that stuff on her?\u201d Behar said. Whoopi Goldberg seemed to agree, adding: \u201cHow dumb would she have to be to not know? This isn\u2019t a stupid woman. This is an amazing woman\u2026 So, she knows the rules. So, this is all BS.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The next day, Cherelle Griner appeared on Rev. Al Sharpton\u2019s SiriusXM radio program,\u00a0Keepin\u2019 It Real<\/a>, where she issued her most poignant plea yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBrittney matters. We\u2019re never going to shut up about this until she\u2019s back,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re never going to allow them to take their precious time, because every second that goes by, BG is struggling. She\u2019s a human. She\u2019s struggling. She\u2019s there, terrified. She\u2019s there alone. I mean, even in America, if she was going through a legal proceeding, she wouldn\u2019t be doing it alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Cherelle continued. \u201cEverything about this is just your biggest nightmare. On top of the fact that BG is in a situation where this isn\u2019t even a trial. Russia has a 99% conviction rate. Nothing about this is justice.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Brittney Griner Trial Begins in Russia; Looks Like Political Show<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The odds for justice in Vladimir Putin\u2019s authoritarian Russia are already slim\u2014and especially, we may assume, for a dreadlocked African American icon of the international LGBTQ community. But the war in Ukraine and the geopolitical rivalry between Moscow and Washington are now explicitly at play in the case of basketballContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16061,50,16313,90,150,16314,14846,16315,130,16316],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55677,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55676\/revisions\/55677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Wrongful Detainment\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Cherelle Griner \u2018Very Pissed\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Paired with Other Cases<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Traded for the Merchant of Death?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\u2018Nothing About This is Justice\u2019<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Brittney Griner Trial Begins in Russia; Looks Like Political Show<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"