Is Brittney Griner a Russian hostage?

In Hollywood movies, hostage taking is often framed as an act committed by militant or criminal groups that operate independently of a country’s government. However, right now U.S. citizens often taken hostage by a foreign government by unknown actors. Sadly, it seems the detention WNBA Champion Brittney Griner by Russian authorities may be part of that trend.

The publicly available details of Griner’s case are sparse. This is probably because the US government, the WNBA and her family want keep quiet the matter for strategic reasons or for other factors, such as racial disparities in coverage of missing persons. But what we do know does not support the theory that this was just a routine arrest.

First, the timing is questionable. Griner is detained in February, during the time Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. After that, news of her detention was concealed. Russia release information only then, on March 5, at one of the highest points of tension between the US and Russia in decades. And Griner was willfully denying consular access – one basic rights of any foreign nationals detained – until March 23. We also have no independent verification that the allegation of cannabis oil that the Russians leveled for her is true.

While each case is unique, Griner also embraces, understanding the broader pattern of how these incarcerations happen and the journey to release is key to combating the behavior of hostages that affect to family and community.

Americans are being arbitrarily detained for political leverage around the world, some of them in Russia, Cuba, China, Venezuela and Iran. Many are kept in poor detention conditions and subjected to mental and physical torture, denied medical treatment, and denied legal advice and the right to a fair trial. They are wives, mothers, husbands, fathers and children, who are usually not involved in the charges against them. They are being punished for political conditions for which they are not responsible.

And this is not just a US problem. Citizens and residents of UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Lebanon, Armenia, Canada and many more are all victims of the so-called hostage diplomacyin which they are held by foreigners for political gain.

State-sponsored hostage-taking is a truly global problem and it requires a strong global solution. As a country deeply affected by hostage-taking, the United States should begin by re-evaluating its containment strategies and attributing responsibility for hostage-taking. The Obama administration has conducted a major study on US hostage policyled to a stronger interagency framework to support families, including the creation of a special hostage envoy at the State Department in 2015.

Under former President Donald Trump, hostage recovery efforts have been made a great shake. Presidents both Republican and Democratic have long held Policy “zero tolerance” on hostages, where ransom and extortion payments are considered off-limits for fear of encouraging more hostage takings in the long run. Trump pushed the boundaries of that policy with prisoner swap and handle recovery efforts with a more personal touch, as it was he who welcomed the hostages home with him. taking pictures in the Oval Office. While some hostage families welcome that visibility, other experts question whether the link encourages hostile foreign governments to take more American citizens hostage to take advantage of their rights. force and receive a response from the president himself.

President Joe Biden took a softer approach, sending members of his administration become the public face of handling hostage records. However, Trump’s decades-long hiatus from America’s hostage policy warrants an assessment of what works and what doesn’t and what assumptions fit an analysis of the data. Regardless of the president’s personal style, the issue of hostage taking should be elevated to the priority of the administration and any successful strategy should be more widely used.

Hospice needs to be recognized for what it is: a series of human rights abuses contrary to universally recognized rights. It’s not just a political brawl in which a series of unfortunate victims is collateral damage to great power politics. Rather, foreign countries that take hostages are violate their international obligations according to human rights conventions such as International Covenant on Civil and Political Rightsthat many countries take hostage, including Russia, is a participant. These conventions prohibit arbitrary and unlawful detention, guarantee due process and fair trial, and prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment .

Legal settlement should be pursued individually and collectively on all these grounds to the fullest extent possible. Family members of detainees, or those detained themselves after their release, should petition international, regional and national courts and agencies of United Nations. Shrinking from individual cases, the global hostage issue also needs to be legally addressed, as a model of state behavior, by national and international prosecutors who can charge these cases as crimes against humanity.

Unfortunately, options for holding states liable are severely limited by long-standing rules of state immunity, which forbid individuals from suing states. The United States and Canada allow hostage victims to sue states, but only if those states are included on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. European countries there is no exception to the state waiver to take hostages, not even limited to specific states. Strengthening legal avenues to hold states accountable can have a deterrent effect, especially when there is monetary damage.

The international community needs to strengthen coordination to end this practice. Last year, the Canadian government come up with an initiative supported by 58 countries, including America, to prevent countries from detaining foreign nationals for diplomatic leverage. That statement is non-binding legalbut this example of solidarity needs to be followed up with more specific, multilateral means – including conventions, courts or other containment and accountability mechanisms – to address the issue of enforcement. hostages with a global voice coupled with containment action.

Brittney Griner is being held in Russia and may be there for geopolitical interests completely unrelated to any of her actions. Only when the world comes together to condemn the growing problem of state-sponsored hostage-taking and coordinate a legally binding and internationally recognized response will this negative trend end.

at Blogtuan.info – Source: nbcnews.com – Read the original article here