7 years of prison for pussy riot?

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.