American prisons are no picnic, especially when compared to those of other nations. From John Kiriakou at consortiumnews.com:
Western journalists are providing breathless depictions of the harsh conditions facing U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in Russia. Have none of them been inside a U.S. prison?
Brittney Griner in 2019. (Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
All of the major media outlets announced recently that former American women’s basketball sensation Brittney Griner had been moved to a “Russian penal colony” after an appellate court rejected the appeal of her conviction and sentence of nine years for trying to smuggle a vial of THC oil into Russia.
The sentence is draconian, but it’s not unlike drug sentences here in the United States. But that’s not the point that I want to make here. What I do want to point out is the U.S. media’s use of the term “Russian penal colony.” Other outlets have thrown out the word “gulag,” harkening back to the days of Josef Stalin.
NBC News reported that Griner was “transferred to a penal colony, the successor to the infamous Russian gulag.” Insider Magazine said that Griner “fears facing inhumane treatment at Russia’s penal colonies, where abuse is common, disease, is rampant, and labor is forced.”
Even the storied UPI, United Press International, said that Griner is going to a penal colony, “the descendant of the notorious Soviet-era gulags, where prisoners have been subjected to harsh treatment and poor conditions. Prisoners in the system have been beaten by other inmates, endured torture, and forced to watch Russian propaganda for hours every day.”
