Pussy Riot can rock the Kremlin to its foundations
Congratulations Vladimir Putin. Just four months back in the Kremlin and you have inflicted the worst blow to Russia’s international image in more than a decade.
Few can doubt that the Kremlin had a hand in the decision to sentence Pussy Riot to two years in prison. The punishment is grossly disproportionate to the band’s “crime” – singing a raucous anti-Putin ditty in a Moscow cathedral.
Still, professional Russia watchers know that there have been far worse human rights violations in the Putin years. The difference is that Sergei Magnitsky, a murdered lawyer, Anna Politkovskaya, a murdered journalist, and even Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a jailed oligarch, have never really become household names in the outside world. Pussy Riot members, by contrast, are all set to become global celebrities.
Writers and musicians can be far more dangerous opponents for authoritarians than mere politicians or controversial businessmen such as Mr Khodorkovsky. They often have a wit, panache and integrity that makes rulers look ridiculous. Václav Havel, a playwright, became the rallying figure for the opposition in Czechoslovakia. Around the world, Ai Weiwei, an artist, has become the flamboyant face of opposition to the identical apparatchiks of the Chinese Communist party.
Pussy Riot has only just released its first single. But it has courage and a gift for performance art. Its name deftly combines two of the major preoccupations of teenage boys. And, as outspoken women, its members embody the idea of “girl power” – as lauded by the Spice Girls. The band’s trademark balaclavas also provide an easily imitated “look” that has already been emulated in demonstrations from Berlin to New York.
Yet those tempted to dismiss the three imprisoned members of Pussy Riot as simply clever marketeers should read their statements from the dock, which are intelligent, articulate and moving.
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Two Years for Pussy Riot and International Disdain for Russia
On the 17th of August three members of the Russian feminist punk-rock collective ‘Pussy Riot’ were sentenced to two years of prison convicted of hooliganism. The alleged hooliganism was a politically charged impromptu performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Russian politics is marred with corruption and deceit; in this blog I will explain why Pussy Riot staged their performance, why they have been sentenced and how this reflects on Russia.
In March 2012 three members of Pussy Riot were arrested for their performance in a cathedral in Moscow which called for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to resign. Lyrics from the performance included:
Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish Putin, banish Putin,
Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish him, we pray thee!
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What is Vladimir Putin up to?
Vladimir Putin’s contempt for the useless fools of the West who fawn upon him has again been revealed by the sentence given to three members of Pussy Riot last week. An appropriate and proportionate response might be to suspend Russia from the Council of Europe until they are free. This won’t happen, as Tory MPs sit with Putin stooge MPs at the Council of Europe and despite hand wringing from a junior minister on the sentence, Cameron and Hague are refusing to criticise Putin.
In 2008, Cameron flew to Tbilisi from his Aegean holiday to show solidarity with the people of Georgia after the Russian invasion and dismemberment of their country. Last week Putin admitted it was a pre-planned and pre-meditated military assault. At a press conference, Russian reporters were astonished to learn: “There was a plan, it’s not a secret”.
Putin made the remarks in response to a TV documentary, The Day That Was Lost, in which Russian generals made outspoken and unprecedented criticisms of the then President, Dmitri Medvedev. The military men accused Medvedev, who was then commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces, of failing to act decisively in the crucial first few hours of the August 2008 conflict – a “tragic delay that cost so many lives” in their view. Putin, who was then prime minister, is portrayed in the film as the saviour of the situation – the man who “provided personal leadership” during the military operation. The then Chief of the General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said that that until Putin “delivered a kick, everyone was afraid of something”.
Now back as president and commander-in-chief Putin was not going to disavow his generals. “There was a plan, and within the framework of this plan that Russia acted. It was prepared by the General Staff at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. It was approved by me, agreed with me.”
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Business groups headed to conventions to push lawmakers on Russia trade bil
Business groups will mount their next blitz on lawmakers to pass a bill normalizing trade with Russia at the upcoming party conventions.
The Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will head to the Republicans convention in Tampa and to the Democrats event in Charlotte to hammer home the need to pass legislation extending permanent normal trade relations to Moscow when they return to Washington next month.
“Through radio and print ads, media interviews and panel discussions, the BRT agenda to grow the U.S. economy, including PNTR with Russia, will be highlighted at the conventions,” said Tita Freeman, senior vice president for communications at the BRT.
The Chamber will blanket the conventions, as well.
“Yes, it will be on our agenda as well as we talk with members of Congress at both conventions,” said Blair Latoff, senior director of U.S. Chamber communications.
“With a severely attenuated congressional calendar for the fall, we will be encouraging Members to focus on key priorities, which includes finally passing Russia PNTR and allowing the trade benefits to begin to flow as soon as possible,” Latoff said.
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Pussy Riot is just the start of the fight for free speech in Russia
Today’s guilty verdict in the Pussy Riot case has confirmed Vladimir Putin not as the sucessor to Stalin, but sucessor to the tsars. Putin is anointed little father, and the church-state monster against which Tolokonnikov, Alekhina and Semutsevich protested at Christ The Saviour Cathedral in March has bitten back.
When the three members of the art collective entered the cathedral in March, they cannot have imagined where it would end – Pussy Riot members told Index on Censorship that the arrests had been a surprise. Some of the group had previously staged anti-government actions in Moscow, and even been arrested, but nothing could have prepared them for this ordeal.
That is not to say that these are naive people. Pussy Riot is loosely affiliated to the avant-garde art group Voina (“War”), which has staged increasingly daring activities over the past few years. In 2010, the group audaciously managed to paint an enormous penis on St Petersburg’s Liteinyi Bridge. The action took exhaustive planning, but the result was brilliant, and hilarious: as the bridge was raised at night, the huge phallus pointed directly at the city’s FSB headquarters. That work, “Cock Held Captive By The FSB”, won an award for innovation in art. Two years later, Voina’s feminist counterpart has been condemned.
The female nature of the protest is at least part of the problem. Though their name itself is meaningless to most Russians, the dresses and tights and appeals to the Virgin Mary to become a feminist in their “punk prayer” are a very clear signal that this is about women. In a country whose leader takes every opportunity to exhibit his manly attributes – horseriding with no shirt on, judo, magically discovering ancient artefacts while out for a swim, subduing unruly polar bears – feminism in itself is a provocation – even un-Russian, as the prosecution in the trial claimed.
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Of Putin and Punks
Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has become expert at using the power of the courts to break opponents and crush political dissent. In the latest episode, the three young women of the “Pussy Riot” punk band were sentenced Friday to two years in prison for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”
The women were arrested in March for performing an anti-Putin stunt inside the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, where they beseeched “Virgin Mary, drive away drive away Putin!” The clips went viral on YouTube, which is what really must have irked the Kremlin.
Following the method of Putin justice, the court barred much defense testimony, though it allowed prosecution witnesses who had not been at the cathedral. The judge on Friday took more than three hours to read the verdict, which included detailed descriptions of the shape of the defendants’ heads. According to the live-tweets of reporter Simon Shuster, the judge also noted their “mixed psychological disorders” that include “individualism, stubborn expression of opinions, unwillingness to cede positions.”
The proceedings were no less farcical than those that have kept oil tycoon and Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky behind bars since 2003. And the trial follows the recent indictment of Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger and lawyer, on charges of embezzling money from a state company. Mr. Navalny faces between five and 10 years in prison, though the charges against him were investigated and dropped twice by regional prosecutors. He has become a Putin target because his writings are a focal point for the growing protests against the authoritarian regime.
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When Putin’s Thugs Came for Me
The only surprise to come out of Friday’s guilty verdict in the trial here of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot was how many people acted surprised. Three young women were sentenced to two years in prison for the prank of singing an anti-Putin “prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Their jailing was the next logical step for Vladimir Putin’s steady crackdown on “acts against the social order,” the Kremlin’s expansive term for any public display of resistance.
In the 100 days since Mr. Putin’s re-election as president, severe new laws against public protest have been passed and the homes of opposition leaders have been raided. These are not the actions of a regime prepared to grant leniency to anyone who offends Mr. Putin’s latest ally, the Orthodox Church and its patriarch.
Unfortunately, I was not there to hear the judge’s decision, which she took hours to read. The crowds outside the court building made entry nearly impossible, so I stood in a doorway and took questions from journalists. Suddenly, I was dragged away by a group of police—in fact carried away with one policeman on each arm and leg.
The men refused to tell me why I was being arrested and shoved me into a police van. When I got up to again ask why I had been detained, things turned violent. I was restrained, choked and struck several times by a group of officers before being driven to the police station with dozens of other protesters. After several hours I was released, but not before they told me I was being criminally investigated for assaulting a police officer who claimed I had bitten him.
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Putin’s Russia Is Becoming a Flawless Dictatorship
The window through which the world currently views Vladimir Putin’s Russia is narrow and can only be opened from the outside — like the feeding door of a cage.
The window is part of the glass enclosure in which the defendants are held during trials in Moscow’s Khamovniki district court. As long as it’s open, it serves as their connection to the outside world. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was Russia’s richest man until 2003 and has been its most famous prisoner since then, used it to deliver a couple of words to the world when he was put on trial here for a second time in 2010.
Last Wednesday, it was the voice of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova that was coming from the cage. Tolokonnikova, a 22-year-old student, together with two other members of the feminist punk bank Pussy Riot, were being charged with “hooliganism.” When the verdict is pronounced on Friday, the women could be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
The charge is documented in videos showing the musicians, wearing ski masks, giving a performance on Feb. 21, 2012, in front of the wall of icons in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The lyrics included the following: “Mother of God, Virgin Mary, drive Putin away,” “Holy shit, shit, Lord’s shit,” and “The patriarch believes in Putin / Bastard, better believe in God.”
In their closing statements to the court, the defendants tried to refute the charge of “hooliganism.” Tolokonnikova, with her neatly plucked eyebrows and perfectly styled hair, unabashedly referred to other people who went to extremes to defend their beliefs: St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian church; the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who was sentenced to death for his resistance to religious and secular rulers alike; and Gulag chronicler Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, who predicted “that words will crush concrete.”
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Trade Relations With Russia
Congress was supposed to pass a bill to improve trade relations with Russia before it left town for summer recess. That did not happen, and American companies that do business in Russia, or want to, may find themselves at a disadvantage with foreign competitors once Russia joins the World Trade Organization on Aug. 22.
The issue hangs on an anachronism called the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which was enacted in 1974 to pressure Moscow to grant Jews the freedom to leave the country by effectively imposing higher tariffs on imports from the Soviet Union. Two decades later, Jewish emigration is no longer a problem, but the law is.
Since 1992, American presidents have waived application of the law and granted Russia temporary, normal trade status, which allows lower import duties. With Russia becoming the last major economy to win admission to the W.T.O., that status needs to be made permanent. If Jackson-Vanik is not lifted, the United States will be in violation of W.T.O. rules. And American exporters will have to pay higher tariffs to Russia to enter its markets than European and Asian competitors do. The fallout for American workers should be obvious.
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
