Haven’t seen any discussion of the Pussy Riot “trial” here, and it’s prolly gonna wrap up tomorrow (8 August, Wednesday).
Pussy Riot is the name of an all-female punk rock band/performance group in Russia. Three of the women in the band are about to be sentenced to a labor camp, possibly for 3 years or more, for storming onto the pulpit at a church (not during a service, tho) and dancing and singing a brief song about Russian President Putin and the church patriarch. The women say they were upset that the church was telling people who to vote for in the last election, which took place in early May.
For those who haven’t read about this in the news, here’s a couple of articles:
Prosecutors Ask for 3 Years for Anti-Putin Rockers from the AP News service
Pussy Riot Trial: Russian Prosecutor Seeks Jail Time For Protesters at Huffington Post
The Absurd and Outrageous Trial of Pussy Riot from The New Yorker
Here’s their page on wikipedia.
This is their blog on Livejournal; most of it is in Russian, but there is also some English text and links to stories in the US and UK.
Briefly, the 3 women are charged with “hooliganism” and “inciting religious hatred” for performing what they call a “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour cathedral, part of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the prayer (a song, really), the 3 women, clad in balaclavas (knitted face covers), danced and sang words to the effect of “Mother Mary, chase Putin away” and also made reference to church patriarch Kiril as a man who believes in Putin more than he believes in God. The total time of the stunt was about 60 seconds before security guards escorted/chased them off the pulpit and out of the building. You can watch the video here.
For some reason, only 3 of the people who took part in this have been arrested and charged (there are 4 people in the performance and 1 person filming it).
This has been big news in the metal/punk community, and I’ve read quite a bit about the modern state of Russia. IMO, the place is cosmetically nicer than it was when it was the USSR, but as is so often the case, it seems the beauty is only skin deep. This “trial” has had a foregone conclusion since the women were arrested and the state really hasn’t been coy about that fact.
My feeling is that this will focus international attention on the fact that Russia isn’t really a democracy, nor is it as open as the Russian PTB want the world to think it is. I don’t hold out much hope that these 3 women will face anything other than a harsh sentence, but I do have hope that they will become a symbol and focal point for other Russians and the world community. With information flowing as quickly and freely as it does these days, I think this could be the pebble that starts an avalanche and leads to Russia finally having a semblance of the freedoms that so many of us have, and the end to the autocratic charade that passes for Russian democracy.
Make no mistake, the punk rock and metal communities do not forget or forsake our own. Whatever the outcome of the “trial”, Pussy Riot has already earned a spot in our legends and lore, and these women’s brave stance and bold expression will be celebrated in songs long after Putin’s life is mentioned only with a snarl and a tone of disgust. Hopefully that day will come sooner than later, thanks in no small part to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich.