7 years of prison for pussy riot?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr0jNui5Qw8

http://freepussyriot.org/

see, now that's punk rock

"The charge is pussy riot, the verdict is guilty and the sentence is 7 years. This court stands in recess"

http://i45.tinypic.com/2qti9m8.gif

That is a misleading URL

One Russian paper apparently translated Pussy Riot on their English-language site as "Uprising of the Uterus".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY

oh sorry, same vid at op. missed it somehow

I'd be pretty surprised if they did go to jail - a suspended sentence is more likely. The chance for the state to (in their minds) look magnanimous in the eyes of the international community is more important than suppressing a punk band.

Oh man, they are singing Bogoroditsa

We did that in college

The chance for the state to (in their minds) look magnanimous in the eyes of the international community is more important than suppressing a punk band.

Don't know about that. They've been held without trial for the past two months - and the hearing's still not scheduled til June.

We'll see. There's obviously no chance of them actually looking magnanimous under the circumstances but i wouldn't be surprised if it ended up like the cases you have in Thailand of people being given suspended sentences or being pardoned after insulting the King. The message is clear - don't fuck with authority - but the fiction that the state is fundamentally reasonable is partially maintained.

I really want to take this seriously, and eventually I will, but at the moment I am still in the "cracking up every time I read the name 'Pussy Riot'" phase of engagement with this story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/03/pussy-riot-trial-russia

Times have had 3 stories about Pussy Riot since this happened. I imagine some sub-editor was trying to win a bet.

It has been getting coverage on Radio 4's Today programme as well.

Good long piece here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/29/pussy-riot-protest-vladimir-putin-russia?intcmp=239

verdict in a few hours...?

valiant, graceful closing statement:

http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/yekaterina-samutsevich-closing-statement/

amazing, everybody read that

yeah, that's fantastic

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/the-riot-girls-style/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_shall_not_pass

I confess to not previously having known the origin of the No Pasaran slogan, worn by a bandmember

Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) will stage a solidarity concert this Friday, August 10, from 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. outside the Russian embassy (corner of Wisconsin Ave. and Edmunds St., NW Washington DC) in support of the Russian punk rock group Pussy Riot.

AIUSA supporters and local D.C. music groups and artists, including indie and punk rock bands Brenda, Möbius Strip and Sad Bones, will call for the release of the prisoners of conscience. From 5:30 - 8:00 p.m., AIUSA will host a concert directly outside the embassy, as high-energy activists dressed in full Pussy Riot regalia lead chants and musical performances.

agree that statement is great

wonderfully emblematic of a certain strain of blunt cynicism & black humor in Russian leftism that I find really appealling

xp

Excellent

Agreed. Rolling Stone had the following from the closing statements of the other band members:

"I, like Solzhenitsyn, believe that words will crush concrete," said Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, standing in front of a slit in the glass and metal cage where the band's three members have been held throughout their trial. "We sit in a cage, but we didn't lose. And the dissidents didn't lose. Disappearing in psychiatric wards and jails, they convicted the regime."

"At Brodsky's trial, his poems were also dubbed 'so-called poems' and weren't read – just like the witnesses just watched our video on the Internet," added another band member, Maria Alyokhina. "I am not afraid of you. You can take away my 'so-called' freedom, but you can never take my inner freedom."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pussy-riot-make-final-pleas-in-moscow-court-20120808

<3

The statements were very good.

It'll be a huge deal if they are jailed - not just because it would be a crack in the veneer of the government's respectability but because it would be a massive over-reaction to an imaginary threat. They pose no danger to the political status quo - if the government treats them like they do then they're losing it. It has been a PR disaster from the start and if they compound that mistake with a jail term it'll show how rattled they are.

Putin's public statements recently have been urging the courts to show leniency, while not talking down the supposed seriousness of the crime. That, to me, reinforces the idea that they'll get time served or a suspended sentence but it's really difficult to predict.

Not sure that Putin really cares that much about the pr damage. Look at his approach to Syria.

Syria doesn't make any difference to the legitimacy of his power, which is the primary thing he's interested in.

look at his approach to life

needs to kiss more boys on the stomach obviously

FREE PUSSY RIOT Public Reading

Thursday August 16 @ Liberty Hall at The Ace Hotel in New York

This Thursday night, August 16th @ 7:30pm, on the eve of the trial's verdict, Pussy Riot's inspirational court room statements will be read by supporters of the Free Pussy Riot movement, including Chloe Sevigny, Eileen Myles, Karen Finley, Johanna Fateman, Mx Justin Vivian Bond (+ others to be announced) info here.

The verdict for the Pussy Riot trial will be stated on Friday August 17 @ 3pm Moscow Time (8am EST). ALSO: There will be a march and rally on Friday, info here. Free Pussy Riot encourages any artists / activists to join on Thursday evening and Friday in solidarity with the three detained women, Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samucevich of Pussy Riot.

WHO:
FREE PUSSY RIOT
In support for the release of the members of the feminist performance Art group Pussy Riot; Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samucevich.
http://www.freepussyriot.org/
https://twitter.com/freepussyriot
]#FreePussyRiot
#LetOurSistersGo

WHAT:
On the eve of the verdict in the Pussy Riot trial, an energetic evening of readings of the inspirational court room statements by the detained women of Pussy Riot. The narrated program will also include selected prison letters and other translated material along with court room attendees written observations.



Writers:
Katja Samutsevich
Nadia Tolokonnikova
Masha Alyekhina


Confirmed Readers:
Chloe Sevigny
Eileen Myles
Karen Finley
Johanna Fateman
Mx Justin Vivian Bond

WHERE:
Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel
20 West 29th Street.
New York, NY 10001

WHEN:
Thursday, August 16th
Doors open at 7:30pm
Free and open to the public.

tempting!

Karen Finley is still around. Wow.

Update: the xpost reading etc will be streamed live 8/16 here: https://new.livestream.com/accounts/1294758/events/1050371
re more readers and maybe others to be added, check here https://www.facebook.com/events/336406896449171/

There is still something inherently not quite right about the phrase Free Pussy Riot.

But yeah, please let them go, mr. Putin.

my butt was on RT with some other butts that in concert had FREE PUSSY RIOT written on them while pointed at the russian embassy

I know if there's one person that can sway Putin and his gang, it's Chloe Sevigny!

damn a hoos butt even down for some insurrection

Free Hoos Butt

Pussy Riot

FREE PUSSY RIOT

WHO:
PUSSY RIOT

WHAT:
PUSSY RIOT

WHERE:
PUSSY RIOT

WHEN:
PUSSY RIOT

^ chorus

From BBC News:

BREAKING NEWS: Three women from the Russian punk band Pussy Riot found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred

World goes back that little step further into the Middle Ages.

Fittingly some middle aged and Middle Aged cockfarming Oxford professor was defending Putin on Today this morning.

The verdict was pretty much inevitable. The sentencing will be the critical thing here.

But guys! Guys! The Ecuadorean embassy could still ~totally~ offer them asylum, right?

Oh.

From The Guardian:

Some very blunt words from pop star Kate Nash, who perhaps far more than Madonna has the power to get a lot of teenage girls from around the world mobilized in favour of Pussy Riot.

Or possibly not.

I'm rather disappointed in the internet tbh. No pet owners have recreated the girls' video as "puppy riot"

Oh, and the Guardian has shortened that Kate Nash bit already. And Gary Kasparov has been arrested at a protest.

Will there be a statue one day, like Zappa in Prague?

Gary Kasparov news from the Quietus.

I went to a Free Pussy Riot flashmob protest yesterday, there was quite a turn out. A lot more action across the country planned for today. I don't really know what we can do except keep on raising awareness and hope international pressure gets this overturned. I think Kasparov's pretty much right, though, as long as money still flows Putin doesn't care.

Two years in jail is really shocking.

Could be a set-up for clemency, but still.

The judge should be jailed for disrupting the social order with this sentence.

two years for "not showing respect" just seems so unjustifiable - it's horrible to think that there are people out there who'd think that's an appropriate sentence.

How many people would have to go into a church and do the exact same thing before the government realised they couldn't just keep locking people up? Not a rhetorical question, but I suspect the number is shockingly high.

there's a whooooole lotta prison space in Russia iirc

so sad, so disgusting

reast in peace, pussy riot

Critics of the band have also been demonstrating, saying the stunt was an insult to the Russian Orthodox Church.

One, Igor Kim, told the BBC News website from Moscow: "Shouting and screaming and spreading hate in Church is unacceptable and is contrary with Christian ethics."

One protester outside court in Moscow simply shouted: "Let Pussy Riot and all their supporters burn in hell."

Oh, lemme get that straight - wishing people would burn in (some fictional place they don't even believe in) is acceptable and in line with Christian ethics, then? Nice.

It was really, really dumb for them to do this considering that a couple of them have kids. Like, time served has probably seriously fucked all their lives up already.

I had been under an impression this whole time that most of Russia was atheist, so I'm pretty surprised about all the hubbub surrounding this.

Can you please just clarify who you mean by the "them" in the assertion of dumbness?

The fucking band! They have kids and stuff and yet they go and do these weird public protest things. Not very well thought out.

wishing people would burn in (some fictional place they don't even believe in) is acceptable and in line with Christian ethics, then?

yeah, that one's traditional

x-post
so people who have kids should never protest at anything?

Religion's a huge deal in Russia. I assume it was a risk they felt that they needed to take, aware of the consequences.

xp: people who have kids need to prioritize their shit.

Like, do you want to give your kids a good life or do you really want to do some stupid punk-rock puppet show thing that really offends a lot of people but doesn't change anything?

Um, that really restricts quite a lot who is and isn't "allowed" to protest in a way that I'm really not prepared to accept.

In fact, that whole idea is unbelievably o_0 to me.

from Yekaterina Samutsevich's closing statement:

"the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of the Orthodox aesthetic in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had an aura of lost history, of something that had been crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present a new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project that has little to do with a genuine concern for the preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture."

http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements

If I want to do both, fuck anybody who says I can't or shouldn't. xxp

well, that's what the members of pussy riot apparently thought and now they don't get to be parents to their children for 2 years!

how's life, you're surely joking?

my understanding is that, for the members of Pussy Riot, bringing up children in a Russia without protest means that those kids will never have a good life.

So, "let the wookie win" then? xp

Cis OTM. I imagine that having kids is one of those things that changes your priorities so sharply that there are things one is no longer prepared to put up with and shut up about.

once you are a mom you should never leave the house

it's far too early to say that their actions haven't changed anything

xp: I'm a dad and I'd walk a mile to stay out of the way of a protest.

zappi, I'm sure the kids will take great solace in that.

maybe they will in the future? who knows.

oh my god plz don't let this thread get fucked by this 2nd rate troll bullshit

criticizing their parenting nagl bro

WCC OTM imho

I somehow doubt they consider that shutting up and letting their kids grow up in Putin's Russia would have been a bed of roses y'know.

xxxp not trolling in the least!

yeah, i'm not gonna criticize parents for protesting politically. especially when the form of their protest was so mild. the sentence is the only stupidity that deserves criticizm here.

how's life, teaching your children to cower before injustice because you fear for your security is kind of a terrible look too, imo

Sorry to bring up Mr Y again today, but he had a very good quote - that he actually *started* his activism after he became a parent. Because he said that there was no way that he could look into his kids' eyes and say "sorry, kids, I didn't even try to do anything about this fucked up shit." You're not just trying to save your own skin any more, but also worrying about what kind of future you will be leaving for your offspring.

xxxp not trolling in the least!

― how's life, Friday, August 17, 2012 8:38 AM (9 seconds ago)

no matter what the cause, a fair number of those who protest are likely to be parents. they're not stupid. they're people making a difficult moral choice.

like I hope aero jr. doesn't end up saying "my dad always taught me, keep your fucking mouth shut, don't make waves, wouldn't wanna get in trouble"

if no one in history who had family responsibilities had ever put their own wellbeing at risk for what they saw as a greater cause, then

remix:

It was really, really dumb for the russian authorities to do this considering that a couple of them have kids.

Cheers.

if you believe that political engagement and the belief in justice is an essential part of being a human being then maybe you would be modelling that for your children. if you don't, i guess you don't have to.

xps: I'm not saying you should "cower before injustice", but I am saying that protests are extremely high-risk compared to their benefits. There's gotta be an opposition party or something in Russia, right?

um

you do not know whether or not there is an opposition party in Russia but you are very confident in asserting the effect that protest will or will not have there?

Oh for fuck's sake

(xpost to everything how's life has said)

playing the political game perhaaaps doesn't really work when those in charge don't follow the rules.

e.g. when they imprison you for two years for being a bit rude.

I am saying that protests are extremely high-risk compared to their benefits.

tell that to MLK, ghandi, the arab spring, etc...

There's gotta be an opposition party or something in Russia, right?

genuine lol here, well done!

I don't wanna teach my kids to do a cost v benefits analysis before exercising their inherent right to self-expression, either. you set a good example for your children if you live your most deeply-held values imo

maybe the suffragists should have just joined the opposition party instead of protesting to demand that they... get the vote...

things how's life assumes about Russia:

- there is an "opposition party"
- most people are atheists
- protestors don't consider the welfare of their children

in russia party opposes u iirc

Any government with a thoroughly corrupt legal system like Russia's, twisted by influence and a micro-managing neo authoritarian ruler who would orchestrate a verdict like this against non-violent protestors would have cracked down on anyone who did not toe the party line exactly eventually, moms or no. That's what Russia was like for several decades, for those too young to remember, and what Russian under Putin as been wobbling toward once again in recent years. At least these women went down fighting.

in russia party opposes u iirc

well played

(xp) it's probably how the States will go if the Romney/Ryan ticket wins in November.

none of the 40 reports ive heard have defined hooliganism under russian law (maybe cause it didnt really matter for pr).

good analysis marcello

maybe the suffragists should have just joined the opposition party instead of protesting to demand that they... get the vote...

in fairness this is basically the line the Democratic party here uses about protest: do it the effective way! Vote Democrat!

Def some of those revolutionary war bros had kids, that whole "taking on the British" thing was a bit risky

(xp) it's probably how the States will go if the Romney/Ryan ticket wins in November.

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin)

a new challenger has appeared

Maybe Putin is counting on this story to not make waves in the U.S. because the media here won't want to expose the citizens to the word"pussy"

http://www.tnr.com/article/magazine/politics/105735/maria-baronova-anti-putin-activist

Shaken, Baronova wanted to leave the country, but her ex-husband wouldn’t let her emigrate with their son. So she went to the office of Solidarity, an opposition organization, and volunteered to help them—and later Ponomarev—with public relations. She also poured the money she’d saved for her son’s education abroad into the opposition’s activities. “I see this as a cold civil war,” she explains. “The state is using all its resources to fight its own citizens, so we have to use of all of ours.”

Maybe Putin is counting on this story to not make waves in the U.S. because the media here won't want to expose the citizens to the word"pussy"

so many classic ellipsis-edits possible here

There's no point in putting them in jail - if there IS a god and (s)he's offended by what they've done, they'll be punished when their time comes. So there.

i'm sure how's life tuts just as loudly every time a father is clapped in gaol for protest

well of course he does! because he himself is a dad, to a child, who he has, sometimes he talks about it on here iirc

that was unnecessary. sorry to how's life.

anyway, this is really shitty.

There's gotta be an opposition party or something in Russia, right?

The biggest opposition party in Russia, and traditionally the strongest threat to the dominance of United Russia, is the Communists. Russia's problem isn't specifically a lack of opposition parties, it's the lack of a civil society that can actually support and nurture effective grass roots political movements. The whole political system is broken - to the point at which Putin is arguably the least offensive option for voters much of the time. Russia doesn't need more people joining traditional parties - the traditional parties are terrible, it needs more people willing to step aside from mainstream politics and challenge the assumptions of authority via other means, which is what Pussy Riot were doing.

There's a case for saying that staging the protest in a church was a miscalculation, not least because they'd probably not be in jail now had they done it somewhere else, but that was presumably a calculated risk they were willing to run.

No, that's okay Matt. And I don't want to detract from how shitty and unfair this verdict it, either!

I sort of want to apologize to people because I've been doing some reading up on Russia and I guess things are a lot worse than I actually thought over there. However, I still couldn't tell you what singing songs in churches is going to do to change those conditions.

xp

hopefully to demonstrate that the 'natural' and 'unshakeable' and media-determined hand-in-glove relationship between the (orthodox) church and (putinist) state can be cracked apart, just by a prank.

However, I still couldn't tell you what singing songs in churches is going to do to change those conditions.

it is currently p much the main news item all over the world tho, right? & because of it you are doing some reading up on Russia and founding out things are a lot worse than you knew.

Singing songs in church might not make a great deal of difference but being locked up for singing songs in church has made them, almost overnight, three of the most important figureheads for dissent in a country where more of the other "figureheads for dissent" who get talked about in the international media are either murderous gangsters or super-shady for other reasons.

*most of the other*

i think the church is what is giving it some traction in the u.s. but that's not gonna help. it'll be dispiriting to watch how "we" justify not doing anything.

are either murderous gangsters or super-shady for other reasons

well there's Kasparov. unless there's some dirt on him I don't know about.

Fuck.

well there's Kasparov. unless there's some dirt on him I don't know about.

― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, August 17, 2012 5:46 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's got a thing for flying penises, iirc.

well there's Kasparov. unless there's some dirt on him I don't know about.

― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:46 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i heard he is a major player

Kasparov has pretty much zero support in Russia and is generally thought to have strong, and not particularly transparent, links to US neo-cons and Yeltsin-era profiteers.

yeah I know he's got no actual power base, just press I guess. didn't know about the neocon stuff that's kind of a bummer.

Navalny has more on him than consorting with nationalists?

Navalny is a die-hard Russian nationalist with strong racist leanings. He's effective, and an important counterbalance to the government, but comes with some really unpleasant baggage.

Any citations for the Kasparov/neo-con links?

He was a member of, and later a consultant to, the Center For Security Policy (along with Richard Perle, Doug Feith, James Woolsey, etc) a while back but they've done their best to edit him out of their history as it would be poison in Russia. It was reported by The Exile, and others, but it's not something that the English-language press is likely to shout about.

Cheers..I see Kasparov was their 1991 'Keeper Of The Flame'..

some varied post-verdict thoughts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/the-wrong-reasons-to-back-pussy-riot.html

hmmmm? blaming the dissidents

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444443504577600763679287008.html

more straight-forward

How many fans of Pussy Riot’s zany “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s erudite and moving closing statement were equally thrilled by her participation, naked and heavily pregnant, in a public orgy at a Moscow museum in 2008?

still pretty jazzed

i actually have been wondering about that "public orgy" -- a lot of ppl have been writing about it as though it were a, i guess, "real" orgy? but most of the contemporary accts describe it as staged sex.

i guess it doesnt quite "matter" -- you can see some photos here http://plucer.livejournal.com/55710.html -- but it still feels like a kind of important distinction to make?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lat3avvu791qe4or4o1_500.png

I think it's still possible to support their release from detention without buying into their whole ideology but the first piece makes some legitimate points about the lack of interest in the context of Russian politics beyond "the state is bad and opposition to the state must be good".

I really wish people would stop comparing Pussy Riot and Khordokovsky and giving him a platform to spout his propaganda unchallenged.

I think it's awful that they're going to jail for this and I even plan to discuss this in a fall course. However, I also think it is worth questioning why this case has received so much more press coverage than this person's case (current front page of the Amnesty site) ever did: me: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/14/iran-nasrin-sotoudeh-jail-sentence

Could there be any merit to any arguments here, as provocatively written as they may be?: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/106278/the-story-pussy-riot

Don't know how that "me" got in there.

I think people have largely given up hope that external campaigning is going to make a blind bit of difference in Iran and Pakistan but still feel it can have an impact on a country with strong political and economic links to Europe and the US. Might have been nice to see a little more about the trial of a group of Kazakh oil workers though.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/15/kazakhstan-ensure-fair-trial-opposition-activists-oil-worker

from that nytimes thing:

Some outlets have portrayed the case as a quest for freedom of expression and other ground rules of liberal democracy. Yet the very phrase “freedom of expression,” with its connotations of genteel protest as a civic way to blow off some steam while life goes on, is alien to Russian radical thought. The members of Pussy Riot are not liberals looking for self-expression. They are self-confessed descendants of the surrealists and the Russian futurists, determined to radically, even violently, change society.

watch out! do not assume these women are like us. this country actually values its dissident artistic tradition. it isn't just a lifestyle accessory for them! be very careful.

idk how much coverage this story is getting except on my facebook feed, where admittedly it is getting a lot (from people heretofore uninterested in russia). i'm sure it is being overcovered since it's about a punk girl band called pussy riot, but what are you gonna do. besides, punk girl bands need more coverage in general and siloviki-regime rights violations definitely do in particular, since some of putin's major strengths are (internationally) his feigned democracy and (domestically) the impression that his harshness was/is necessary to bring the country under control (and even that he stands against the gangsters rather than just for his own gangsters). this is the second major mass-media crack of the last nine months in both ideas. also that closing statement was all kinds of otm.

I definitely think the fact that they're a feminist punk band has a lot to do with the import my facebook/twitter cohort place upon them, but that's because a large number of them are feminist punks. I've been consciously trying to juggle my support for Pussy Riot with bringing other political injustices to light, but I'm very aware that cause célèbres happen, and they're not always bad things.

oh and the wsj:

The proximity of the Pussy Riot verdict to the scheduled announcement of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, due to be formalized on Wednesday, captures the strange chimera that is Mr. Putin's Russia. On the one hand, the Russian Federation is taking major strides toward economic modernization. On the other, it's a country that will sentence young women to two years in prison for an irreverent political protest—after seriously debating the evidential requirements for proving demonic possession.

a country that's in the wto AND repressive, authoritarian, and superstitious?! truly, a chimera. wrapped in a medusa. (piece otherwise seems fine, speculates levelheadedly about what putin's cost-benefit analysis must have been.)

The Guardian makes a Pussy Riot video from news footage:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-release-new-single-video

To clarify, it's for this new song ( via same publicist as the above Free Pussy Riot reading etc)
Pussy Riot shares their new song, “Putin Lights Up the Fires” with the world HERE (link for the Guardian video). This is the art group’s first musical piece since the "Virgin Mary, Please Drive Putin Away" for which three members were found guilty of hooliganism driven by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in jail. The Guardian has edited the new song to a montage of Pussy Riot members and their supporters. Even though the song was released on Friday, the translated lyrics have just been revealed today.

PUSSY RIOT "Putin Lights Up the Fires" lyrics:
(translation credit: @Russian_Market)

This state may be stronger than time in jail.

The more arrests, the happier it is.
Every arrest is carried out with love for the sexist

Who botoxed his cheeks and pumped his chest and abs.

But you can't nail us in the coffin.
Throw off the yoke of former KGB!

Putin is lighting the fires of revolution
He's bored and scared of sharing silence with the people
With every execution: the stench of rotten ash
With every long sentence: a wet dream

The country is going, the country is going into the streets boldly
The country is going, the country is going to bid farewell to the regime
The country is going, the country is going, like a feminist wedge
And Putin is going, Putin is going to say goodbye like a sheep

Arrest the whole city for May 6th
Seven years isn't enough, give us 18!
Forbid us to scream, walk and curse!
Go and marry Father Lukashenko

The 6th letter from detention written by Nadia:
http://www.freepussyriot.org/content/6th-letter-detention-nadia-written-eve-verdict

And Livestream's still got an archive of videos, docs etc posted during the reading
https://new.livestream.com/accounts/1294758/events/1050371

idk how much coverage this story is getting except on my facebook feed

It was the top story on the CBC News page a day or two ago. More than one celebrity, including Madonna, has spoken publicly about it.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=bbc+pussy+riot&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC
http://www.bing.com/search?q=ny+times+pussy+riot&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=ny+times+pussy+riot&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=

Fwiw:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=bbc+nasrin+sotoudeh&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC
http://www.bing.com/search?q=ny+times+nasrin+sotoudeh&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=ny+times+nasrin+sotoudeh&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=

That nytimes op-ed is just insane.

standing behind Pussy Riot only now, when it is obviously blameless and the government clearly guilty, is pure opportunism

http://www.vice.com/read/we-too-are-hooligans

*barfs*

inspiring

why the hell am I still clicking on Red State links when I won't go near Vice with a ten foot pole

But no amount of bitching, or blogging, or tweeting was making me, or any of the rest of us, feel like we were doing enough to show that we felt something about this. That we cared.

"Fuck it. Let's get tattoos."

poss. key phrase

yeah this is a hall of fame "lol privileged white kids" story

lol

He concentrated on his beer during the ouchy parts. He concentrated on his beer during the ouchy parts. He concentrated on his beer during the ouchy parts. He concentrated on his beer during the ouchy parts. He concentrated on his beer during the ouchy parts. He concentrated on his beer during the ouchy parts.

From NYT op-ed:

Pussy Riot’s fans in the West need to understand that their heroes’ dissent will not stop at Putin; neither will it stop if and when Russia becomes a “normal” liberal democracy. Because what Pussy Riot wants is something that is equally terrifying, provocative and threatening to the established order in both Russia and the West (and has been from time immemorial): freedom from patriarchy, capitalism, religion, conventional morality, inequality and the entire corporate state system. We should only support these brave women if we, too, are brave enough to go all the way.

Terrifying? I dunno, at least half of those I'd be fine with. Freedom from patriarchy? Let's go!

ha, apparently (via google translate) хулиган can mean "molester" as well as "hooligan".

OH NOES PUSSY RIOT WANT FREEDOM FROM PATRIARCHY? HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?

We should only support these brave women if we, too, are brave enough to go all the way.

This is idiotic. If anything, defending freedom of expression is more meaningful when we defend the freedom of people we don't agree with.

I think the writer is at least reasonably sympathetic to their aims. The gist of the piece, as far i saw it, was that the politicians and newspapers lining up to support them would probably hate them with a passion if they tried to pull the same thing in the US, UK or France and that to only engage with their ideas as a freedom of speech issue does them a disservice.

ha, apparently (via google translate) хулиган can mean "molester" as well as "hooligan"

football molesters

to only engage with their ideas as a freedom of speech issue does them a disservice.

But what if the freedom of speech issue is what concerns you? I'd defend the freedom of speech of a Nazi sympathizer as well. Do I need to like their music too in order to oppose the jailing (because I don't especially)?

Does Pussy Riot have a manifesto somewhere? Have they spoken about all those other issues? I don't disbelieve that they might believe in all those things; I'm just wondering. This op-ed was the only place I heard about them having an all-encompassing radical ideology.

I agree that the article doesn't necessarily make a strong case but there's more than a grain of truth in saying that organs like the Daily Mail and Vice which have traditionally had fairly strong sexist and racist agendas are missing at least some of Pussy Riot's intended message while claiming solidarity with them. The freedom of speech issue probably can stand alone, though.

Voina has been involved in a lot of different actions that aren't specifically related to freedom of speech issues but i can't recall ever seeing a full manifesto. I imagine, as an art collective, they've probably got one though.

not a manifesto, but those linked statements and letters are pretty strong.

Benefit, proceeds to Pussy Riot Legal Defense Fund--will this be a trend, is it already? Hope so.

http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs071/1102000774575/img/1510.png

Sorry!
http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs071/1102000774575/img/1510.png

It's in L.A.

But what if the freedom of speech issue is what concerns you? I'd defend the freedom of speech of a Nazi sympathizer as well.

Uh. Really? I've kinda held back from this debate because I've agree with most of what has been said - and, well, I don't post much. But this is off, IMO. I cannot defend, for example, David Irving's right to deny the holocaust which led to him being barred from Germany, where that is a criminal offence in that country. Going further still, I won't defend the right of a Nazi sympathiser in the UK for any espousal of race hate, where it is a criminal offence to incite racial hatred.

i grant nations the right to self-govern, but as an american speaking about my own country, sure, i'd defend the right of a holocaust denier to put forth that view. i don't think that erroneous thinking can be effectively countered if it isn't given the chance to present itself publicly.

in a more general (and perhaps arrogant) sense, i think that all people should be free to speak their minds in this manner.

I will totally defend assholes' right to say assholish things in public, and that goes for Nazis.

if they cross the line to specifically inciting violence, that's a different story, and is not protected free speech under the 1st Amendment.

otm

imo there is a clear and very real difference between someone saying "Jews should be exterminated" in a general sense and someone pointing at me and saying "kill that Jew over there". Both statements are personally offensive, but only the latter is a direct threat.

Inciting racial hatred can be saying assholish things in public.

hatred is not a crime

eh, not so sure about that myself. my willingness to defend free speech ends at the point where anyone's "extermination" is being called for, whether in a general or specific sense. would defend awful stuff that doesn't edge quite so close to incitement of violence.

Inciting racial hatred is - in the Uk

xp

Uh. Really? I've kinda held back from this debate because I've agree with most of what has been said - and, well, I don't post much. But this is off, IMO. I cannot defend, for example, David Irving's right to deny the holocaust which led to him being barred from Germany, where that is a criminal offence in that country. Going further still, I won't defend the right of a Nazi sympathiser in the UK for any espousal of race hate, where it is a criminal offence to incite racial hatred.

― kraudive, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 11:07 PM (14 minutes ago)

i'm not gonna spend my time lecturing germany for having that law (tho i can't see ANY good that came out of sending irving to prison), but freedom of speech means very little if it doesn't protect awful and offensive views. if we can send ppl to prison for expressing sympathy for the nazis, i don't know what we do with all the leftists down the years who've expressed sympathy for stalin (or lenin, for that matter), or all the nutjobs with confederate flag shirts.

how's that workin out for you guys kraudive. racial hatred all gone yet?

Well. That's different isn't it?

I know a lot of the UK's ultra-white Nationalists have been convicted of just that thing in the last couple of years. This law may have stopped a thuggish element overtake the marginal ultra right wing parties - they have divided into smaller bands of even more unelectable units. Unlike, for example - in France, where the Far Right have found some government.

I have the impression that in France even the leftists are racists but what do I know

LOL, yes, "Fight the power", get tattoos.

How very subversive of you guys, getting a tattoo of 'hooligan' in Russian, i bet you are celebrating by buying the best coke you can get. You're gonna get some mad punk rock sex with those new tattoos, you edgy pieces of shit.

I suppose it's easier than, i dunno, flying over to Russia and protesting outside the prison or something. Or really doing anything.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0250_0616_ZD.html

The Chik-Fil-A farrago (obv pales beside what's happening to PR) was a welcome reminder that good liberals are absolutist when affirming the First Amendment rights of disgusting people.

This law may have stopped a thuggish element overtake the marginal ultra right wing parties

at the risk of sounding glib, so what if it has and why should you need a law to punish speech used by a thuggish element?

The Chik-Fil-A farrago (obv pales beside what's happening to PR) was a welcome reminder that good liberals are absolutist when affirming the First Amendment rights of disgusting people.

absolutely. i'd never condemn anyone just for threatening to boycott a restaurant.

boycotting a restaurant isn't an infringement on anyone's First Amendment rights

i'd never condemn anyone just for threatening to boycott a restaurant.

huh?

;)

Uh. Really?

Really. Hate speech is against the Criminal Code in Canada too and I oppose this policy, preferring the US's approach in this area. (Afaik, it only gets you a fine here, not jail time.) If a Nazi skinhead band were to record an anti-Indian record and get fined for it, you can bet I'd be willing to, uh, comment on message boards and cover the issue in a class, which is the extent of my support of Pussy Riot so far.

Btw, according to Wikipedia, hate speech can get you up to a year in jail in France and denying the Holocaust can get you five years. It doesn't seem that this has stopped the Far Right from "finding some government".

The laws against inciting racial hatred are relatively rarely used in the UK (and in a majority of cases not used against white people) but there has traditionally been a link between explicit racist propagandising in specific areas and an increase in racist violence in those areas, as far as i know. The far right doesn't pose an intellectual or political threat to the country, it poses a threat to individuals with baseball bats and bricks.

http://m.vice.com/read/we-too-are-hooligans

- max

lol like many a vice "story" about "issues" this one was just another exercise in self-aggrandizement.

Are there boycotts in Russia?

by adopting their imagery while refusing to mention their radical politics amnesty is silencing pussy riot and the lion's share of their social critique while pretending to amplify them. and amnesty is fundraising--for themselves--off of it. that's what's meant by the descriptor "opportunism."

^^ yes

I think that's really unfair on Amnesty. Amnesty campaigns for the release of political prisoners, not the causes of those prisoners.

Yeah, as with ACLU, defending freedom of speech doesn't mean anything if you only defend the speech you agree with, obviously. I suppose the following will inspire another righteous op-ed, deploring escape of some PR members, "and if you don't go to Moscow and do what Pussy Riot did, then you cannot protest their sentences, for you are in essence fleeing responsibility" or some shit:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/26/pussy-riot-members-escape-russia_n_1831087.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D197183

I'm with Stew on this re Amnesty International. And even if they're fundraising off this, that's fine with me too as it will aid their efforts to free political prisoners that are less well-known than Pussy Riot. As for "silencing them," while the Amnesty site does not cover much of their social critique, their August 17 item on the verdict spelled out this much(here's an excerpt):

Pussy Riot performed the protest song “Virgin Mary, redeem us from Putin” in Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on 21 February, with the group members covering their faces in balaclavas.

The song called on the Virgin Mary to become a feminist and banish Vladimir Putin. It also criticised the dedication and support shown to Putin by some Russian Orthodox Church representatives. It was one of a number of performances intended as a protest against Vladimir Putin in the run-up to Russia’s presidential elections in March.

Yeah, as with ACLU, defending freedom of speech doesn't mean anything if you only defend the speech you agree with, obviously. I suppose the following will inspire another righteous op-ed, deploring escape of some PR members, "and if you don't go to Moscow and do what Pussy Riot did, then you cannot protest their sentences, for you are in essence fleeing responsibility" or some shit:
--dow

I'm not suggesting--as the op-Ed was--that anyone who fails to adopt PR's anarchism is somehow engaging in a cowardly half measure, nor am I saying I want to see SMASH THE STATE on the next set of signs Amnesty prints for me to wave outside the Russian embassy. I'm suggesting that to adopt PR's flamboyant imagery in the interest of getting attention for their case--rather than their cause--is cynical, and to raise money off of it is supremely so. As someone else said, if you didn't know any better lately you might think Pussy Riot's cause was to Free Pussy Riot.

And for the record, my neighbor gave me an annoyed bang on the wall after my excited holler when I read of the escape--followed immediately by my lady friend's holler at their call to feminist punks around the world to join up.

\m/

I think most people would be aware of the context but there's a chance that the Amnesty campaign is deliberately playing down the political aspect of the protest for Pussy Riot's own benefit, or perceived benefit. Saying that the trial, or at least the sentence, was unjust chimes with what a lot of people in Russia would be thinking. There's a real danger that Amnesty engaging more deeply with the anti-Putin element would delegitimise both Amnesty and Pussy Riot in the eyes of a lot of people who might otherwise be sympathetic to their cause. Russians of all political stripes tend not to react well to outsiders trying to interfere in their political processes. One of the biggest criticisms, or allegations, against the band is that their funding / support base comes from abroad.

my housemate happened to be in russia recently and wrote this - thought it was an interesting angle on how pussy riot are perceived by russian women: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/valeria-costa-kostritsky/is-feminism-in-russia-mortal-sin

This whole thing seems more a freedom-of-speech issue than a feminism issue.

Or are men generally allowed to do what they did in Russia without consequence?

This whole thing seems more a freedom-of-speech issue than a feminism issue.

yeah these issues are totally separate, no way there could be a feminist angle to their actions or the response to their actions here given that they self-identify as feminist and all

and pointing out the feminist angle obviously means freedom of speech is not an issue at all because it's EITHER/OR

Yeah, because when Men get sent to prison, there's always someone in the crowd shouting "didn't he think about how this'll affect his KIDS??"

oh, wait..

Yes whoever said it's EITHER/OR is pretty wrong.

If I want to find out more about what is about from a standpoint of 'Why did they go to jail for protesting?' I would probably read up on the history and politics of Russian suppression of speech before reading up on the history of feminism.

i could do with reading something about feminism in russia, actually

i mean, more than (more historical than?) the half a dozen paragraphs on open democracy. i gather it has a kind of weird history, due to various western-world-centric assumptions of a lot of second-wave & after feminism not really working over there

I agree w Hoos re exploitation, making money off a kewl rad cause, good to take a hard look before and after any donations.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/08/29/listen-d-c-s-tribute-to-pussy-riot/

Uh.

http://www.factmag.com/2012/08/30/free-pussy-riot-written-in-blood-at-double-murder-scene/

I would not be surprised if that was a complete fabrication

"At the crime scene, on the wall of the apartment was discovered an inscription presumably written in blood: 'Free Pussy Riot'," said the committee, which is Russia's top investigative body and answers to Putin.

O RLY

Oh yeah, me neither. That was pretty much what the 'uh' was about, really.

Though even if true it says nothing about the case itself, and everything about how people like to make themselves part of a narrative (see also: number of people corroborating 'roar' story re the fictional Essex Lion).

The partner of the younger victim has confessed and said that he wrote the slogan to throw police off.

freed

wait ha sorry no called to be freed but unless they are playing a subtler game than it looks like they are playing w/ impressions of medvedev's independence that's p much the same thing

One member has been released after appeal, the other two will have to serve their terms, it seems:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct/10/pussy-riot-member-freed-moscow

oh I was just about to post the CNN.com version of this story

Navalny has more on him than consorting with nationalists?

― Pilot Inspektor Leee (Leee)

Probably on his way to jail for timber fraud:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23352688

A new song about the petrostate:
http://youtu.be/qOM_3QH3bBw

Some band commentary:
http://en.pussy-riot.info/blog/2013/7/16/red-prison-tour

A rough translation of the lyrics:
http://www.voanews.com/content/new-pussy-riot-video-targets-oil-industry/1702801.html

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/23/pussy-riot-hunger-strike-nadezhda-tolokonnikova

Amnesty?

http://rt.com/news/amnesty-bill-putin-parliament-951/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/23/world/europe/russia-pussy-riot-member-freed/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/01/pussy_riot_members_after_release_they_re_launching_a_prisoners_rights_movement.html

actual content from slate for once, incl. accounts of their prison time, activist plans etc.

this is great
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/432806/february-04-2014/pussy-riot-pt--1

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/world/europe/pussy-riot-members-say-prison-emboldened-them.html?hp&_r=0

also, this goes without saying, but nadya <3 <3 <3

But their newfound acclaim did not sit smoothly with the other, still-anonymous members of Pussy Riot. Hours before the concert, those women emailed an open letter — translated into English — to supporters of the group.

“We are very pleased with Masha’s and Nadia’s release,” they wrote. “We are proud of their resistance against harsh trials that fell to their lot, and their determination by all means to continue the struggle that they had started during their stay in the colonies.

“Unfortunately for us,” the letter continued, “they are being so carried away with the problems in Russian prisons, that they completely forgot about the aspirations and ideals of our group — feminism, separatist resistance, fight against authoritarianism and personality cult, all of which, as a matter of fact, was the cause for their unjust punishment.”

Ms. Tolokonnikova and Ms. Alyokhina, who have taken pains to say they are no longer members of Pussy Riot, refused to communicate with the existing members of the group.

“Yes, we lost two friends,” the letter said, “but the world has acquired two brave, interesting, controversial human rights defenders.” It was signed, under assumed names, by six members of the group.

Backstage before the show, in a dressing room adjacent to Lauryn Hill’s, Ms. Tolokonnikova and Ms. Alyokhina had no comment about the letter.

I didn't realise they'd left Pussy Riot. Have they said why?

They've formed their own NGO. I get the impression they were uneasy with the way 'Pussy Riot' had been turned into (or at least viewed by some people as) a brand / pop group.

I'm not sure whether they're still part of the Voina art collective though.

Or, at least, they didn't feel that the band set-up had anything left to offer the causes they were promoting.

Smart decision

this goes without saying

Yet...

For context, this interview with the idiotic socialite-turned-campaigner Ksenia Sobchak was done the day before they said they were no longer part of the project. Probably wasn't the direct cause but highlights some of the problems:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamelder/12-ridiculous-moments-from-pussy-riots-first-tv-interview?s=mobile

Worth it for the reaction gifs alone.

'what's up with your eyebrows?'

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2013-12/enhanced/webdr06/26/20/anigif_enhanced-buzz-18331-1388107656-2.gif

What is up with her eyebrows?

Does anyone else always hear "...and they put you on the dayshift" at the end of this thread title?

well that doesn't scan

A new twist. They say they never left Pussy Riot and don't know who wrote the open letter claiming they had.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/11/nadezhda-tolokonnikova-maria-alyokhina-never-left-pussy-riot

sadly this is all pretty much textbook radical leftist infighting. my political inclinations and sympathies lie with the anonymous members fwiw

this is horrifying, and unbelievable. the NYT article about the return of the cossacks is very worthwhile reading:

The Cossacks Are Back. May the Hills Tremble.

By ELLEN BARRY

STAVROPOL, Russia — Outside this city’s police headquarters on a recent night, a priest in a purple velvet hat and gold stole moved from one man to the next, offering a cross to be kissed and drenching their faces with holy water from a long brush.

And so began another night of law enforcement as Cossacks, the fierce horsemen who once secured the frontier for the Russian empire, marched out to join the police patrolling the city.

In his third term, President Vladimir V. Putin has offered one clear new direction for the country: the development of a conservative, nationalist ideology. Cossacks have emerged as a kind of mascot, with growing financial and political support.

The Kremlin is dipping into a deep pool of history: Cossacks are revered here for their bravery and pre-modern code of honor, like cowboys in the United States or samurai in Japan. But their legacy is bound up with battle and vigilante-style violence, including campaigns against Turks, Jews and Muslim highlanders.

These days men in Cossack uniforms are making appearances all over Russia, carrying out blustery raids of art exhibits, museums and theaters as standard-bearers for a resurgent church. But here on Russia’s southern flank, the Cossack revival is more than an idea. Regional leaders are granting them an increasing role in law enforcement, in some cases explicitly asking them to stem an influx of ethnic minorities, mainly Muslims from the Caucasus, into territory long dominated by Orthodox Slavs.

“We’ve lived cheek to cheek with them, and sometimes we fought with them, and we probably understand them better than a Russian from Moscow,” said Staff Capt. Vadim Stadnikov, head of security for the Terek Cossack Army, whose office displays a portrait of Czar Nicholas II. “They respect strength here.”

“With police it is a short conversation — you committed a crime, here’s the punishment,” he said. With Cossacks involved, he added, “There is a prophylactic effect, a kind of education. They come here. Take this group of young people. Explain to them the traditions of the Orthodox, Slavic, Cossack people of the city of Stavropol. What our rules are. How we live here.”

A series of violent episodes have underlined the potential for trouble in this incendiary and heavily armed part of Russia. This month, a Cossack chieftain was fatally shot trying to arrest a drunken man who had taken hostages in the neighboring region of Krasnodar. At the chieftain’s funeral, Cossacks in crimson coats, carrying leather whips and sabers, streamed after a riderless horse, a sight that could have dated from the 16th century.

Afterward, a top official said the time had come for the state to allow Cossack patrolmen to carry traumatic guns, nonlethal weapons that can inflict severe injuries at close range — a proposal that has been endorsed by the governors of Krasnodar and Stavropol.

“Some human rights activists, some ill-wishers, talk a lot about whether it’s necessary or not necessary,” Nikolai A. Doluda, chieftain of the Kuban Cossack Army and a deputy to the governor, told Russian television. “This terrible, frightening event underlines the fact that it is necessary.”

Historians still argue about who the Cossacks were — descendants of escaped serfs or Tatar warriors, an ethnic group in their own right or a caste of horsemen. They played a crucial role in colonizing the south for the Russian empire, and later turned on peasant and worker uprisings, defending the czar.

The Bolsheviks nearly obliterated them, deporting tens of thousands in a process they called “de-Cossackization,” but the image of the Cossack, wild and free, was a permanent part of the Russian imagination.

When Tolstoy sat down to write his classic novel “The Cossacks,” he set it near present-day Stavropol, where the Terek River divided the Muslim-populated mountains from the steppes, which were Cossack country. In a scene taught to generations of schoolchildren, a young Cossack spots a Chechen swimming across the Terek disguised as a log and shoots him.

The notion of an ethnic dividing line is widely accepted to this day, but it is running up against demography. Muslim ethnic groups in the Caucasus have a high birthrate, and Russians are abandoning the steppe. About 81 percent of Stavropol’s population is ethnic Russian, but that share has been shrinking for decades, the International Crisis Group has reported.

This rapid change is unsettling to ethnic Russians in Stavropol, who sometimes refer to the newcomers as “shepherds.” Gennady A. Ganopenko, 42, said he grew up in a city so homogeneous that “the sound of a non-Russian language was grounds for a brawl.”

“Earlier, this was the gate to the Caucasus,” he said. “We opened the gate, and then the gate came off the hinges.”

The Cossack revival seeks to slow this trend. Last summer, Aleksandr N. Tkachev, the governor of the Krasnodar region, to the west, took aim at his neighbors in the Stavropol region, saying so many Muslims had resettled there that Russians no longer felt at home. The region, he said, no longer served its traditional function as an ethnic “filter.”

To crack down on illegal migration, he announced the creation of a salaried force of 1,000 Cossack patrolmen, which — he explained in a speech to law enforcement officers — would not be restrained by the law as the police are. He put it this way: “What you cannot do, a Cossack can.”

Stavropol’s leaders bridled at the speech, but it struck a chord with nationalists. Among them was Boris V. Pronin, chieftain of the Romanov-Cossacks, one of the many Cossack associations in Stavropol not officially registered with the government. Like many people in the region, he said youths from the Caucasus had begun to behave too freely in Stavropol.

“It’s as if I came to your house, slapped you in the face and said, ‘Tonight, I’m going to sleep with your wife,’ ” he said in an interview.

Mr. Pronin has bright blue eyes and the battered nose of a boxer, and he wears a handsome, traditional Cossack uniform. After an ethnic Russian man was stabbed in a brawl with Muslim youths from the Caucasus this winter, he lashed out at regional law enforcement for acting too slowly to detain his assailants. He advocates the creation of a Cossack guard unit with powers equivalent to those of the police, warning that immediate action is needed.

“If a person has a cancer and metastasis has begun, if a professional doctor doesn’t take care of this metastasis, he will die,” he said. “It is the same with society. If there is already metastatic cancer on the territory of Stavropol region, one has to take appropriate preventive measures.”

The rise in official support for Cossacks is troubling to some Muslims, though their official representatives are careful about saying so. An exception was Zainudin Azizov, who, on a recent morning, barreled past herds of sheep and over acres of gray-brown steppe in a Mercedes S.U.V. while music wailed from its dashboard.

“One class is turning out to be somehow privileged,” he said of the Cossacks. “Why don’t they support the whole Russian people? Why are they supporting only this small class?”

Mr. Azizov represents Dagestani families who now dominate in villages at the far-eastern edge of the Stavropol region, and he is particularly irritated by a plan to grant free land in areas like his own to Cossack families being resettled, creating a kind of buffer zone of ethnic Russians. Nor does he like the idea of Cossack patrolmen receiving salaries from the state. While some of the local Cossacks are old friends, he said, others are “skinheads.”

“They join the Cossacks, but then they behave like nationalists,” he said. “They have support from the region, from Moscow. They feel they can do anything they want, that tomorrow they will have protection.”

Indeed, the Cossacks who set out to patrol Stavropol on a recent night felt that they were part of a rising tide. Andrei Kovtun, 29, recalled the ribbing he got from his former colleagues in law enforcement when he first patrolled with the Cossacks, who do not have the right to demand documents, carry weapons or detain people.

Still, on one of his early calls — separating two groups of brawling men — he understood that a Cossack’s presence had a psychological effect. “Are you a cop?” someone asked him, and when he answered, the room went quiet. Mr. Kovtun understood why: Policemen are bound by the law.

“A complaint cannot be made against a Cossack, and a Cossack cannot be fired,” he said. “They know Cossacks are free, and will not think too much about how to take a violator to a police station, but will simply give him a whipping. This is what people are afraid of — that a Cossack will punish the culprit in the old, traditional but fair fashion.”

“However,” he added hastily, “first we should always stop it by force of persuasion.”

BERLIN (AP) — Pyotr Verzilov, a member of Russian protest group Pussy Riot, was flown Berlin for treatment late Saturday after falling severely ill. Fellow activists say he was poisoned.
Verzilov was first hospitalized in Moscow on Tuesday and had remained in intensive care, Pussy Riot members said this week. Maria Alekhina, a member of the group, told The Associated Press that he regained consciousness Friday.

Verzilov, his partner Veronika Nikulshina and two other Pussy Riot members served 15-day jail sentences for running onto field in Moscow where soccer’s World Cup final was being played in July. Their protest of what they described as the excessive powers of Russia’s police briefly disrupted the match.

The dude has "lost his sight, speech and physical mobility," and has (temporary) amnesia. He was poisoned w/a compound of "40 or 50" drugs, designed to quickly disappear in blood & urine.

He's a dual Canadian/Russian citizen. I wonder if Canada will do or say anything.

They're "monitoring the situation".

The book by Masha Gessen, Words Will Break Cement, is fantastically illuminating about Pussy Riot and the prison sentences – including her interviews with Yekaterina Samutsevich, and correspondence with Nadya and Maria.

- https://hazlitt.net/feature/confronting-language-lies-masha-gessen-pussy-riot

Images with unexpected juxtapositions :)

https://res.cloudinary.com/cognitives/image/upload/dpr_auto,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/zdtjijibwvllwhzizzw3
"Maria Alyokhina of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot attended the protest. Photo: Thomas Coughlan."

Alyokhina offered her support to the (Ihumātao) protestors, saying her travels around New Zealand had made her aware of the issues surrounding Māori land rights.

“It’s an honour for me to be here and to see how powerful these people are to bring themselves together, because it’s not only about signatures, its about the voice - the powerful voice which they really have,” she said.

– (Newsroom)

This band are so much more punk than the Sex Pistols. (that is to say, none of them have turned rightwing yet)

Alyokhina dating, and making excuses for, a violently homophobic white nationalist is a bit suspect tbh.

...Dmitry Enteo, who attacked Pussy Riot's supporters in 2012.

- https://medium.com/@kharmstimes/for-me-orthodoxy-is-about-freedom-ad36e39894b9

Yes, that is a little strange :s

That seems worse than John Lydon making a commercial for butter tbf.

is it cool to talk about how horseshit this band was now?

it was a very bad commercial tho xp

PR's actual music seems like an afterthought to everything else about them, it's telling that it's barely even mentioned on this thread.

They're an art/protest collective - they didn't see themselves as musicians, and were surprised when people like Madonna treated them as such. Their original music was just "shouting and making a racket" (which may have been one of the basic ideas of punk, iirc). Their notoriety came mainly because they were put in prison in a dictatorship, unlike butter fiend Lydon over there

9 more years for Navalny