WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has been held in Russia since February, urged President Biden in a letter delivered to the White House on Monday not to forget about her and other Americans detained abroad.

“…[A]s I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote to Biden in excerpts of the letter shared by Wasserman, a talent agency that includes her management team. 

Griner, who has been detained in Russia for more than four months over allegations that hashish oil was found in her luggage, said she missed her family and teammates. 

Her trial began on Friday.

“I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American Detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home. I voted for the first time in 2020 and I voted for you. I believe in you. I still have so much good to do with my freedom that you can help restore,” she wrote. 

“I miss my wife! I miss my family! I miss my teammates! It kills me to know they are suffering so much right now. I am grateful for whatever you can do at this moment to get me home.” 

Griner’s team, the Phoenix Mercury, and her wife have called on the United States to do more to get her out of Russia. The State Department in early May said it considered her status in Russia as wrongfully detained, and Biden officials have called her release a “top priority.”

“President Biden has been clear about the need to see all U.S. nationals who are held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad released, including Brittney Griner,” Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement on Monday. “The U.S. government continues to work aggressively — using every available means — to bring her home.”

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/3545794-brittney-griner-to-biden-im-terrified-i-might-be-here-forever/

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW...................

LATEST BUT NOT UP-TO-DATE FROM "THE HILL":

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will marry his longtime partner in a high-security London prison on Wednesday.

Assange, 50, will marry Stella Moris in a small ceremony at Belmarsh Prison, his fiancee wrote in an op-ed in The Guardian on Wednesday.

“This is not a prison wedding, it is a declaration of love and resilience in spite of the prison walls, in spite of the political persecution, in spite of the arbitrary detention, in spite of the harm and harassment inflicted on Julian and our family,” she wrote in the article.

The Wikileaks founder is fighting extradition to the U.S., where he faces a potential trial for publishing a trove of classified documents more than a decade ago.

He has remained in the London prison for three years after he was arrested for skipping bail in a separate legal battle.

The U.K.’s highest court this month denied a request from Assange’s legal team to appeal the U.S. extradition.

But Assange, who claims publishing the documents was within his First Amendment rights, says he will take the decision to the European Court of Human Rights or challenge the judge’s decision.

Before his arrest in 2019, Assange took refuge inside the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for seven years. He met Moris, an attorney, in 2011, when she joined his legal team. The couple have two children together.

Moris said the wedding is being “intensely policed,” and authorities denied the couple’s request for certain witnesses and a press photographer, which she alleges flouts the prison’s rules for other inmates.

Assange’s bride-to-be accused authorities of treating her fiancee as a political prisoner and said they feared “that people will see Julian as a human being.”

“The urge of the authorities to silence and disappear Julian is born out of fear,” she wrote in the op-ed. “We have the strength of our love and righteous conviction. Julian’s family will fight for his freedom and for his life, until he is free.”

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/policy/international/599408-assange-to-marry-inside-high-security-prison/

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#