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Melissa Harris-Perry: Hi, I'm Melissa Harris-Perry and this is The Takeaway. WNBA star Brittney Griner has been detained in Russia for nearly a month. Russian authorities only announced Griner's detention earlier this month, two weeks after arresting her after allegedly finding hash oil in one of her bags at an airport in Moscow. She could face 10 to 20 years in prison under Russian law.
Now Griner has been playing in Russia since 2014. Like many members of WNBA, she plays there to supplement her income. As we covered last week on our show, financial opportunities in the US for WNBA players are often far less lucrative than those available to their NBA counterparts.
Now a few details have emerged since news of Griner's detention became public. This is in part due to her family's desire to maintain privacy for the sake of her protection but her detention is deeply concerning. Amid Russia's violent invasion of Ukraine and the United States' subsequent sanctions, diplomatic relations between the two nations are particularly fraught. Griner is from Houston, Texas, and after learning about her detention on March 5th, House Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas spoke bluntly about the situation.
Sheila Jackson Lee: I don't want to disregard a sovereign nation but Putin has disregarded sovereign nations his entire service in this world, and anyone that is killing and attacking and destroying Ukraine, their neighboring country that has not bothered them, has no right to hold Miss Griner, period.
Melissa Harris-Perry: While Brittney Griner is the most high-profile American citizen currently detained in Russia, the State Department has been working for several years to try to earn the release of two other Americans being held in Russian prisons. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned when he was asked about Griner earlier this month.
Antony Blinken: With regard to the individual you mentioned, there's only so much I can say given privacy considerations at this point. Let me just say more generally, whenever an American is detained anywhere in the world, we, of course, stand ready to provide every possible assistance and that includes in Russia. As you know, and we've talked about this for a long time, we've been seeking the release of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed for some time, both of whom are unjustly detained.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Of course, there's also the fact that Griner is a Black, openly queer woman in a country that is hostile to LGBTQ+ people. Here she is speaking at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2013, the year she came out publicly as gay.
Brittney Griner: Growing up, I always knew I wanted to do something big in the world to have a place. I never knew sports was going to be my outlet. With sports, I have a lot of media attention and a lot of spotlight on me and I'm able to use that for something that's close to my heart, that's close to me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: As we continue to monitor Brittney Griner's detention, we want to talk with someone who knows firsthand what it's like being unjustly detained abroad. Jason Rezaian is the host of the Spotify original podcast 544 Days, and executive producer of The Washington Post's opinion film, Bring Them Home. Jason, welcome back to The Takeaway.
Jason Rezaian: Thanks for having me back, Melissa. It's such an important conversation. I appreciate you talking about it.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Brittney has been detained now for at least a month. Should we be saying that she's being held hostage? What is the right way for us to frame this moment?
Jason Rezaian: It's a really good question and one that I think the diplomatic speech that the government uses doesn't help clarify. Americans, like citizens of other countries, are routinely arrested when traveling abroad, oftentimes on legitimate charges or charges that on the surface may have some merit. In the case of Brittney Griner, we don't know exactly what's true and what's not true.
Even if there is merit to the initial charge, we've seen in some cases that the detention evolves into a political leverage against the US. It's hard to say if this is being qualified as a wrongful detention by the State Department standards yet, but if they do make that determination, my default is to call that a state hostage-taking. Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, the other two Americans who we know of, who are being held in Russia right now have been deemed wrongfully detained so by my metrics, they're state hostages.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Given your own experiences, what are you most concerned about for Griner right now?
Jason Rezaian: First of all, the fact that it was Russian media attached to the state that announced her detention puts those trying to free Brittney in a compromised position. Russia has taken control of the narratives, and we can say whatever we want to outside of Russia demanding her release but the dominant story is that this person has been arrested and detained on charges there against Russian law. We don't know if that's true or not, that's just what Russia says. The US government, her family, the WNBA, already are on their back feet, flat-footed in this case.
Second, we understand that she's being denied consular access, she's not had the opportunity to speak with any officials from the US government who represents citizens' affairs in Russia and that's a major red flag. We have no idea what's going on, and what might be done to her while she's in prison. For me, as someone who spent 544 days in prison in Iran, the first 49 of which were in solitary confinement in a cell that was 8 feet by 4 feet, where the lights were on 24 hours a day. The only time I was out of the cell was to be relentlessly interrogated. I understand that they could be doing a whole host of things to her and we have no oversight or insight into those.
Melissa Harris-Perry: We have, as a team, gone back and forth about whether or not to talk about this publicly. Is there danger to shining the media light on this? Are US diplomats better able to work towards release without public attention or is it critical that we keep public attention on the story?
Jason Rezaian: I fall in the camp that says that public attention is important for several reasons. One, the more attention that a detainee of a foreign government gets, the likelihood of them being treated better goes up. Two, the likelihood that the US government is going to intervene forcefully, and do whatever they can to bring that person home increases the more pressure that's on them to do their jobs. I understand the arguments against media attention, but what I'll say is that in this case, we're talking about an international celebrity, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, routinely listed in the top handful of players in the history of women's basketball, has millions of fans in the United States, and potentially even more in Russia, where she plays and has played for the past seven years.
This is not something that we could keep secret, and it's also not something that Russia is keeping secret because they announced her arrest and published a mugshot of her on television. I understand that in certain instances when the news has not broken, it may make sense to keep it quiet but that's not the case here, the cat's out of the bag.
Melissa Harris-Perry: What do you make both of the timing of the arrest and the timing of Russian authorities making that detention public?
Jason Rezaian: I think that they potentially had a plan to arrest Brittney, did arrest Brittney, kept it under wraps, until which time the US and allies began to ramp up sanctions against Russian authorities and wealthy individuals. It smacks of political motivation to me, and I will continue to look at it through that lens until someone proves otherwise.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I suppose for me, you've made this key point around her professional identity, around her fame, her skill, what should we be considering relative to what we know about Russia and LGBTQ+ rights?
Jason Rezaian: Much has been made about Russia's anti-queer approach and the laws that have been passed in that country. I'm not a legal expert. I'm not a Russia expert but when you have someone who is from a community that is legally persecuted by the country that's holding them, the possibilities of abuse go up exponentially. I think we should be, as Americans, calling for her release no matter what community we belong to, that's just the right thing to do. I do think that we should all try and put ourselves in Brittney's shoes and realize that silence is not necessarily the way to support her.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Do you have a sense of obviously you are not yourself, a US diplomat? I'm wondering again, based on both your experience and your reporting, are there things that either the US could be doing or that US media or US citizens could be doing in this moment that might increase the likelihood of release?
Jason Rezaian: Look, I saw this week that a change.org petition has gone up and tens of thousands of people have already signed it. I know in my case, there was about a half a million signatures, ultimately, on the petition that my brother put up. That quantifies for stakeholders in the government, how important this is to people. People can pick up the phone and call their representatives. They can call the state department but I think, at the end of the day, in the media, the important thing for me, you won't read a story by Jason Rezaian that repeats the allegations against Britney Griner. I think when we do that, we're doing her a great disservice. We are taking the narrative of her captors that has not been proven to be true, and repeating them in formats that she cannot counter. As someone who was accused of espionage, supposedly by an adversarial government, without any basis and fact, I bristle every time I go back and read those articles about me from seven years ago when colleagues, some of them friends, used those allegations against me in their headlines. Through no fault of their own, they were making it just a little bit harder for me to get out.
Melissa Harris-Perry: That is such a useful perspective, and one that we will definitely take account of here at The Takeaway. Jason Rezaian is global opinions writer at the Washington Post and executive producer of the documentary, Bring Them Home. Jason, thank you for joining us.
Jason Rezaian: Thank you so much for having me, Melissa.
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