Cong. Mike Kelly | Official U.S. House headshot
Cong. Mike Kelly | Official U.S. House headshot
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 377, a resolution calling for the immediate release of Americans who are currently imprisoned or held in Russia, including Marc Fogel, a Butler County, Pa. native. Others included in the resolution are Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich; and Paul Whelan, who has been detained since 2018.
"I have met with Marc Fogel's family personally, and I made a promise to them: we will always continue to advocate for Marc's safe and quick return to the United States," Kelly said. "Now, we are taking our work directly to the House floor and making it clear that the entire House of Representatives supports Mr. Fogel. There is still much more work to be done. I encourage the Biden administration to continue supporting our efforts to bring Mr. Fogel home."
The resolution, which unanimously passed the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday evening, "expresses sympathy for and solidarity with the families of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and all other American citizens and lawful permanent residents wrongfully detained abroad for the personal hardship experienced as a result of the arbitrary and baseless arrest and detention of their loved ones."
BACKGROUND
Mr. Fogel is a Butler County, Pennsylvania native and taught history courses at schools attended by children of U.S. diplomats in Columbia, Venezuela, Oman, Malaysia, and Russia. In August 2021, he was detained at the Sheremetyevo Airport with medical marijuana prescribed for his chronic back pain. In June 2022, he was sentenced to fourteen years of hard labor in a Russian prison, a sentence usually reserved for large-scale drug smugglers.Under federal law, Mr. Fogel meets at least six of the eleven established criteria to be designated as “wrongfully detained” by the State Department.
In February 2023, Rep. Kelly was among nine Members of Congress who led a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the department to classify Mr. Fogel as "wrongfully detained."
In November 2022, Reps. Kelly, Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and Glenn Thompson (R-PA) signed on as original cosponsors to a resolution urging the State Department to declare Mr. Fogel as "wrongfully detained."
Original source can be found here.
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