FILE PHOTO: U.S. basketball participant Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with unlawful possession of hashish, is escorted earlier than the decision in Khimki exterior Moscow, Russia, August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool
WASHINGTON— Days after the discharge of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner from imprisonment in Russia, Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers will introduce laws on Tuesday to determine March 9 as an annual day to recollect People detained overseas.
The invoice, in accordance with textual content seen by Reuters, seeks to make March 9 “Nationwide Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day,” to name elevated consideration to People unjustly held overseas and add urgency to the push to carry them dwelling.
“Brittney Griner’s launch and unjust imprisonment has solely underscored the necessity for Congress to proceed working to safeguard the lives of wrongfully detained People,” mentioned Democratic Senator Chris Coons, a lead sponsor of the invoice, in a press release.
The measure’s sponsors additionally embody Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Representatives Haley Stevens, a Democrat, and French Hill, a Republican.
The invoice would set up an official “Hostage and Detainee” flag, much like the black-and-white POW-MIA flag adopted in 1972 to attract consideration to People held prisoner or lacking in Southeast Asia through the Vietnam Conflict period.
March 9 is the day on which Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran in 2007. He was declared lifeless in absentia in 2020.
President Joe Biden on Thursday introduced a prisoner swap involving Griner – a two-time Olympic gold medalist and Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation – and arms vendor Viktor Bout.
Griner’s February arrest in Moscow on costs of possessing vape cartridges containing hashish oil triggered a surge of help from followers, celebrities and politicians calling for her launch and criticizing the Biden administration for not doing extra.
The administration has been unable to safe the discharge of former Marine Paul Whelan, who was jailed in Russia on 2020 on spying costs.
America doesn’t present an official determine for what number of of its residents are held overseas, however the James W. Foley Legacy Basis, named after an American journalist kidnapped and killed in Syria, says greater than 60 U.S. residents are wrongfully detained in about 18 international locations.
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