Where’s Brittney Griner going to end up? Looks like a Russian gulag is in her future. Well, a “penal colony” is the current term…but that’s just what a gulag is.
And that appears to be where the athlete that refused to appear on court for the national anthem is headed now that a Russian court has rejected her appeal; she’ll be moving out of the Moscow area prison in which she was kept while her court case proceeded and appeal was heard and to the Russian countryside to do some hard labor…for nine long years.
Alexandr D. Boykov, her Russian lawyer, spoke about how Griner is holding up in an interview, saying:
“She has not been in as good condition as I could sometimes find her in. She is not yet absolutely convinced that America will be able to take her home. She is very worried about what the price of that [a prisoner exchange] will be, and she is afraid that she will have to serve the whole sentence here in Russia.”
Conservative Twitter personality and author Nick Adams announced as much in a Twitter post, saying:
Brittney Griner is being transferred to a Russian penal colony, where she will spend the next 9 years after losing her appeal.
Thankful Brittney landed in a place where she won’t have to hear our terrible and oppressive National Anthem again for the foreseeable future. 🙏
Indeed. Maybe the Russian national anthem will prove less triggering to her than Old Glory, at least until the first time she has to crush rocks with a sledgehammer while listening to it or carry around beams to build a railway as it plays in the background…but the benefit of hard labor is that she’ll still be in shape to play in the WNBA once her nine years are up! Hopefully she has a strong back and knees…wouldn’t want those holding her career resumption up!
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, spoke out about the situation after speaking with President Biden, saying:
“I’ve felt every minute of the grueling seven months without her. I look forward to the day my wife is back home. As my family and I continue on this journey, I’d like to thank the broad coalition of friends, leaders, and supporters who continue to stand with us and advocate for Brittney’s swift and safe return. Let’s share a unified commitment to bringing all Americans home to their families and loved ones. Together We Are BG.”
But while Brittney will be moved to a gulag to break rocks or perform some other sort of labor, she might not have to travel too far across the Russian Federation. Yahoo news reported on that, saying:
Since the appeals court again rejected those arguments and endorsed the lower court’s initial verdict, Griner soon may have to endure somewhere worse than the Novoye Grishino pre-trial detention center where she has been held the past eight months. Her sentence calls for her to be transferred to a penal colony, where conditions can be more brutal and inmates are required to perform labor during their sentence.
We’ll see where she ends up. Maybe the ordeal will help her rethink her anti-American protests.
