American Citizen Journalist Sitting in Ukraine Prison, State Dept. Confirms; Detained American Says He Was Beaten, Extorted in Ukrainian Prison: Ignored Because I’m Not a ’Black Lesbian Druggie’ (VIDEO)

While lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. debate sending billions more in military aid to Ukraine, an American citizen journalist, Gonzalo Lira, is languishing in a Ukrainian prison on allegations of spreading Russian propaganda, throwing into question the status of free speech in the supposed democracy the Biden administration argues is worthy of more taxpayer dollars. . .

However, the administration has been much less vocal about Ukraine potentially violating the rights of an American journalist who is currently detained in Ukraine for his reporting; and in a speech at the U.N. almost entirely devoted to Ukraine, the status of Gonzalo Lira was not mentioned once by Biden.

Lira, a dual citizen of the United States and Chile who was living in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv at the time of the Russian invasion, is reportedly facing between five to eight years in prison under Ukraine’s wartime propaganda laws.

The American citizen journalist was initially arrested in May of this year on suspicion of producing pro-Russian propaganda on his YouTube channel, where he questioned the narratives around the war presented in the legacy media and from the Zelensky government, including suggesting that Moscow was provoked into invading by the Ukrainian government and the expansion east of the American-led NATO military alliance. . .

The citizen journalist has also said that he has suffered violent abuse from other prisoners during his initial time in jail, making claims, which cannot be verified, that the prison guards “outsource” torture to other inmates. Lira said that he believes the Chilean embassy did more to protect his welfare than the U.S. State Department. He added that he believes the American government does not have an interest in his case because: “I’m not a black lesbian druggie, or a transgender grifter. Besides, Victoria Nuland hates my guts, or so I’m told.”