7 years of prison for pussy riot?

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