Click photo to enlarge.
Then join Amnesty International.
Yeah, we -- the USA, I live here when I'm not vacationing on Planet Vleeptron -- got our political prisoners, people doing Mucho Hard Time largely or entirely because of the Bad Breath that came out of their unpopular mouths.
But Putin's Russia -- and it's his, there aren't any checks and balances in Russia, no institution with any power to thwart this ex-KGB chief -- is proudly reverting not just to the worst oppression and suppression of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but to the Tsar era, where one despot's word was instantly law and instantly carried out.
I got a big mouth with a lot of unpopular bad breath.
But I live in the USA. The health of the USA, our political vital signs are measured in how few unpopular bad breath loudmouths end up doing hard prison time.
I don't want to take too much credit for the culture of the USA, but we and the Brits practically invented political Bad Breath, and made the rest of the world envious of how much nasty crap we could scream in public without being tossed into a gulag or vanishing in the bowels of a soccer stadium.
The question isn't how artistically wonderful The Sex Pistols or Lenny Bruce are.
So what? Doesn't every Brit sing "God Save the Queen"?
Well ... no, not the way the Sex Pistols sang it.
The question is: What happens to rude, vulgar, loud critics of the establishment in nations like Russia or the People's Republic of China? What happens to people who dare to criticize the Royal Family of Thailand?
Live in Saudi Arabia and got a gripe about the King? Stand up and share your feelings with your neighbors.
And how much do the people of the rest of the world envy the few nations that do a pretty good job of tolerating Free Political Speech?
Lots.
For their extraordinary vulgarity and anti-church, anti-Putin musical filth, Pussy Riot may end up doing a 7-year stretch in the Gulag Archipelago.
But a HUGE bunch of Planet Earth wishes they had the guts to be Pussy Riot.
Because it's very wearying and dispiriting to be frightened of speaking (or singing) your opinions about your government or your government's Partner Church.
*************
Reuters
(newswire UK)
Tuesday 31 July 2012
Russia's 'Pussy Riot'
on trial for cathedral protest
by Alissa de Carbonnel
MOSCOW, July 30 (Reuters) -- Three members of a Russian female punk band went on trial on Monday, facing up to 7 years in jail for protesting against Vladimir Putin inside a Moscow cathedral, a prosecution they said was aimed at spreading fear and silencing dissent.
The trial of the women from the band "Pussy Riot" is being seen as a test of the longtime leader's tolerance of opposition at the start of his third presidential term.
The trio were charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility" for a performance in February when they entered the Christ the Saviour Cathedral, ascended the altar and called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!"
Conservative writers and church leaders have demanded harsh punishment, while civil rights groups say a long prison sentence would be out of proportion with the crime, and prove that Putin is determined to crush opposing voices.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were brought to Moscow's Khamovniki court for Russia's highest-profile trial since another opponent of Putin, former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was convicted of embezzlement in 2010 in the same courtroom.
Supporters chanted "Girls, we're with you!" and "Victory!" as the women, each handcuffed by the wrist to a female officer, were escorted from a police van into the courthouse.
The group's members have consistently maintained that their protest was political and that they meant no harm to Christians.
"We did not want to offend anybody," Tolokonnikova said from the same metal and clear-plastic courtroom cage where Khodorkovsky sat with his business partner during their trial.
"Our motives were exclusively political."
In opening statements read out by their lawyers, the women defended their actions and denounced the prosecution. The case marked "the start of a campaign of authoritarian, repressive measures aimed to ... spread fear among politically active citizens," Samutsevich said in her statement.
Pussy Riot burst onto the scene this winter with angry lyrics and surprise performances, including one on Red Square outside the Kremlin, that went viral on the Internet.
The band members see themselves as the avant-garde of a disenchanted generation looking for creative ways to show dissatisfaction with Putin's 12-year dominance of politics.
The performance in the cathedral was designed to highlight the close relationship between the dominant Russian Orthodox Church and former KGB officer Putin, then prime minister, whose campaign to return to the presidency in a March election was backed by the leader of the church, Patriarch Kirill.
The church, which has enjoyed a big revival since the demise of the Communist Soviet Union in 1991 and is seeking more influence on secular life, has described the performance as part of a sinister campaign by "anti-Russian forces."
The prosecution dismissed accusations of political motives.
"This is not a question of our parliamentary or presidential elections, but a criminal case about ...
banal hooliganism with a religious motive," said Larisa Pavlova, who represents Lyubov Sokologorskaya, one of several people who work at the cathedral and are appearing at the trial as "victims" of Pussy Riot.
Sokologorskaya, who described herself as a "profound believer", said only clerics were allowed at the altar and that the defendants' bare shoulders, short skirts and "aggressive" dance moves violated church rules and offended the faithful.
"When I talk about this event, my heart hurts. It hurts that this is possible in our country," she said. "Their punishment must be adequate so that never again is such a thing repeated."
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev dismissed criticism of the case. The trial was a "serious ordeal" for the defendants and their families but "one should be calm about it" and await the outcome, he told Britain's Times newspaper in an interview posted on the Russian government's website.
Whether the group's performance crossed the line from a "moral misdemeanour" to a crime was "up to the court to decide," Medvedev, in London for the Olympics, said.
A defence lawyer for the musicians, Nikolai Polozov, said Medvedev's comments were aimed at putting pressure on the court to "punish blasphemers": "The court is being very one-sided, slanted towards the prosecution, which of course in our view is motivated exclusively by political bias in this case."
ANGER OVER CLOSE CHURCH-STATE TIES
The women looked thinner and paler than they did when they were jailed following the performance in
late February, shortly before Putin, in power as president from 2000-2008 and then as prime minister, won a six-year presidential term on March 4.
"She looks like she has been on a long hunger strike," Stanislav Samutsevich said of his daughter. "I think this is like an inquisition, like mockery."
A reporter on state-run TV presented a different picture, focusing on occasional smiles and chuckles, by the women, who whispered to each other as a prosecutor read the charges.
"Look at their faces; they are laughing and joking," the reporter said on the news, adding that a viewer might think they were "continuing the action" they carried out at the cathedral.
In their opening statements the women said they were protesting against Kirill's political support for
Putin and had no animosity towards the church or the faithful.
"I have never had such feelings towards anyone in the world," Tolokonnikova said in her statement, describing the charge of religious hatred as "wildly harsh".
"Our performance contained no aggression towards the public -- only a desperate desire to change the situation in Russia for the better," she said. "We are not enemies of Christianity. The opinion of Orthodox believers is important to us and we want all of them to be on our side -- on the side of anti-authoritarian civil activists."
Alyokhina's statement said: "I thought the church loved all its children, but it seems the church loves only those children who love Putin."
Prosecutors asked for the trial, which was streamed live on the Internet, to be closed to the public and the media. The judge rejected the motion but ordered live streaming shut off during witness testimony and some other proceedings.
PROTEST MOVEMENT
Amnesty International said the Pussy Riot performers "must be released immediately" and that the prison terms they face if convicted are "wildly out of all proportion."
"They dared to attack the two pillars of the modern Russian establishment -- the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church," regional programme director John Dalhuisen said in a statement.
The performance was part of a lively protest movement that at its peak saw 100,000 people turn out for rallies in Moscow, some of the largest in Russia since the Soviet Union's demise.
The trial comes as Putin, who is 59 and has not ruled out seeking another term in 2018, tries to rein in opponents who hope to reignite the street protest movement this autumn.
On Monday, Putin signed a law enacting stricter punishment for defamation. That follows recent laws tightening controls on foreign-funded civil rights groups and sharply raising fines for violations of public order at street rallies.
Opposition leaders including anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and socialite Ksenia Sobchak have had their homes searched and faced repeated rounds of questioning over violence at a protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration on May 7.
Lawyers for Navalny say investigators are preparing to charge him, in a separate case, with a crime punishable by up to 5 years in prison. He was summoned to the federal Investigative Committee on Monday and told to return on Tuesday.
- 30 -
=============
The Telegraph
(UK daily broadsheet)
Monday 30 July 2012
Pussy Riot on trial
in watershed case
for Putin's presidency
Three members of Pussy Riot, the radical group of Russian feminist activists that has challenged the Kremlin, went on trial in Moscow on Monday in a case that will set the tone for Vladimir Putin's new presidency.
by Tom Parfitt, Moscow
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, and Maria Alekhina, 24, are facing up to 7 years in jail for their "punk prayer."
The musicians stormed into the city's main cathedral in February and cavorted in front of the altar, shouting, "Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, drive out Putin!"
Delivered to court in handcuffs, the women denied a charge of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred", saying they were sorry to have offended Orthodox believers but innocent of wrongdoing.
The Pussy Riot group, whose members wear brightly coloured clothes and knitted balaclavas, was virtually unknown at the time of the protest at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, having carried out only a few minor "actions" including a guerrilla gig on Red Square.
But the three women's arrest in March brought them into the spotlight and chimed with the street protests against Mr Putin's rule that swept across Russia over the winter.
A video of the cathedral incident, in which believers in headscarves can be seen trying to usher the frantically dancing young women out of the church, was posted online with a soundtrack of heavy guitars and extra shouted lyrics laid over the top including: "Black cassock, golden epaulettes; all believers crawl and prostrate."
The trio, who were remanded in custody and denied access to their families, have since attracted worldwide support from stars such as Sting, Peter Gabriel and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who say their prosecution is excessive. Amnesty International has named the women prisoners of conscience.
Their trial is being seen as a weathervane of Russia's course after Mr Putin's return to the presidency in May. Critics already perceive a backsliding on democracy.
This summer the Kremlin-controlled parliament managed to push through a series of tough laws, including restrictions on foreign-funded non-governmental organisations and the internet, and legislation increasing the scope for libel prosecutions.
Security was tight on Monday as the Pussy Riot women were delivered to a dock made of steel and bullet-proof glass at Moscow's Khamovnichesky Court, in the same courtroom where jailed billionaire and fellow Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted in his latest trial in 2010.
In a passionate statement read to the court by a defence lawyer, Miss Tolokonnikova admitted that she and her friends may have committed an "ethical error" and were "very regretful" if churchgoers were insulted by the cathedral protest.
But she said their song was a reflection of many Russians' discontent at Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, showing open support for Mr Putin as a candidate before the presidential election on March 4.
"We, like many of our compatriots, find unpleasant the insidiousness, deceit, venality, hypocrisy, acquisitiveness and lawlessness with which our current leadership and authorities are sinning," she said.
The "punk performance" was a targeted protest at the Patriarch propping up Mr Putin's "authoritarian and antifeminist course", she added.
Prosecutors said the group had "insulted in a sacrilegious manner the centuries-old foundations of the Russian Orthodox Church".
The trial has opened a wider debate about the role of the church and its leaders in Russian society.
Patriarch Kirill appeared to refer to Pussy Riot when he said recently the church was "under attack by persecutors" and that "blasphemy, derision of the sacred is put forth as a lawful expression of human freedom."
A cathedral attendant who witnessed the protest at Christ the Saviour was summoned as a prosecution witness on Monday and said the women had "desecrated all that is holy to me".
Pussy Riot's supporters say the church is a part of the corrupted nexus of business and politics that is trying to stifle dissent and preserve hardline rule in Russia.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph before the opening of the trial, Nikolai Polozov, one of Pussy Riot's defence lawyers, said: "They went on to Putin's sacred ground and he's a vengeful person. I'm sure he gave the signal for this prosecution."
Mr Polozov said he expected a guilty verdict but could not predict the sentence. "It could be 2
months, it could be 7 years," he said.
"If Putin is under pressure, say on Syria, or something else happens, he might use the girls as a distraction and earn some political capital by putting them away. And then they'll be sewing felt boots, like Khodorkovsky, in a prison colony." The trial continues.
- 30 -
==========
COMMENTS:
==========
CharredBarn
07/31/2012 02:37 PM
Boycott Russian vodka until Pussy Riot is free!!
https://www.facebook.com/pages...
http://tinyurl.com/free-p-riot
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 08:45 PM
You'd do well to lay off the hard stuff permanently, so it seems...
jamieswickford
07/31/2012 12:40 PM
Democracy is a funny thing. We 'in the West' are given a choice of three public school boys, who
themselves have been selected from a further group of public schoolboys who do not in any way live in
the world which the rest of us do.
No wonder Russians are sticking with Putin.
lorrinet
07/31/2012 02:14 PM
David Davis, who should have won the Conservative leadership, is NOT a public schoolboy.
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 08:49 PM
Ah, but he got blocked by his own party, didn't he...
sodit
07/31/2012 06:35 AM
If he treats them harshly, then he makes martyrs out of them. If he treats them leniently, he
provokes more of the same.
Give the naughty girls a good spanking, then put them to bed without their tea. That would be my
advice.
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 10:17 AM
Had it been a one-off, this might have been good advice. However, they have form in anti-social
behaviour and "outraging public decency" as they say in this country.
quantre
07/31/2012 01:58 AM
Put them in a male prison for a month.
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 02:03 AM
The stupid cnuts themselves may be "naughty", but their paymasters can only be described as very
devious and determined.
Golden_Bull
07/31/2012 02:29 AM
Huggy_Bear
The paymasters think they are super clever that they can fool some of the people some of the time.
But in reality they cannot fool all of the people, all of the time.
cortesar
07/31/2012 03:52 AM
if you manage to fool all of the people some time and some people all of the time that just may be
enough
Especially if the later category is the prevalent one
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 02:33 AM
You'd be surprised by the number of libtards who swallow NWO propaganda line, hook and sinker
Rogoraeck
07/31/2012 08:16 AM
I'm not surprised at all!
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 01:40 AM
"The musicians stormed into the city's main cathedral in February and cavorted in front of the
altar, shouting, "Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, drive out Putin!"
This is a lie. What is quoted is the soundtrack they had prepared in advance. What they actually
chanted in the cathedral itself was, repeatedly, "Shit of the Lord! Shit of the Lord!" ('Sran'
gospodnia!') - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Once you bear this in mind, the whole "punk prayer" defence goes out of the window.
What the article also doesn't mention is that the "girls" have form. A couple of years earlier
they, as part of a larger group, held a fuck-a-thon in Moscow's Biology Museum (during opening hours
btw), filmed it and put on youtube. One of them (Tolokonnikova) was 8 months pregnant at the time. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v..., from 0:37
On yet another occasion, one of the "girls" went to a supermarket and stuffed a whole chicken up
her cnut (again, that was filmed and put on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... from 3:55).
That also must have been in protest against Putin, I'm sure.
quantre
07/31/2012 01:53 AM
wow a whole chicken! the dirty mare.
Golden_Bull
07/31/2012 01:48 AM
Huggy_Bear
This is the DT, please do not ask for the "Truth", as in the DT China article allegation, it has
disappeared!!
Huggy_Bear
07/31/2012 02:01 AM
I am not that naive, mate! Just trying to fight back against NWO lies on the enemy's own ground...
joy52
07/30/2012 11:55 PM
They should receive an appropriate punishment. They thought it was ok to desecrate the church and
offend sensibilities of everyday Russians just because they did not agree with Putin or the Orthodox
Church. They only expressed regret after the fact and realizing they would be punished.
There is a line and they crossed it. That detracted from whatever message they had. 'Anything' is
not ok.
David Camerpong
07/30/2012 11:36 PM
This an excellent opportunity for the Russians to see of the americans by punishing the girls
having them clean the church for the next 7 months or let the church decide their punishment..
adamcollyer
07/30/2012 10:08 PM
Let's just wait for the verdict and then the sentence if they're found guilty before jumping to
conclusions, hmm?
They haven't even been found guilty yet, and seven years is the maximum sentence for the offence -
the maximum sentence in Scotland for Breach of the Peace is life imprisonment!
enantiomer2000
07/30/2012 08:53 PM
It's still Soviet Russia isn't it? Has anything changed? In the USA the worst that would happen
might be a disorderly conduct charge which is basically a slap on the wrists. They didn't hurt anybody
and only caused a commotion. Put them in jail for 7 years for this? Sounds crazy to me. Let's face
it, Putin is the new dictator of Russia.
digpig
07/30/2012 10:33 PM
The Orthodox Church in some ways is even less free than it was in the days of the USSR. The senior
clerics knew in the 1970s they were not free, but now they have a Patriarch who has openly enslaved the
Church to the criminal and corrupt regime of Putin - whose period in office he has even dared to call a
telepath
07/30/2012 09:31 PM
Don't brandish the USA's leniency, please. The USA on a daily basis commit crimes against humanity
across the world, plus having death penalty across own states (how many innocent people they have
executed?)... With regards to own citizens, recently more than 16 Russian children died at the hands of
US sadistic adoptive parents, not to mention regular shootings across US by disgruntled individuals.
Nobody has sentenced the idiots to 7 years - 7 years is the maximum, they may get as much as 2
months...
Oh, just read about Mitt Romney's admiration for the Israeli cultural and religious superiority,
real nazi stuff...
3spartan
07/30/2012 08:41 PM
They can't possibly understand how people in Britain feel about Woolly Beard, Archbishop of
Cantebury, supposed moral guardian of the nation's values. Keep quiet, keep coining it in, agree with
the secular profiteers.
writepudding on twitter
07/30/2012 11:49 PM
RT @parfitt_tom: "Pussy Riot on trial in watershed case for Vladimir Putin's presidency" My report
in the @telegraph http://t.co/sjVc5svi
Commenter's avatar
almackin on twitter
07/30/2012 11:15 PM
Vladimir Putin promises to jail Pussycat Dolls and Atomic Kitten next http://t.co/Iv5Py8Ob
#cathater
albino_monk on twitter
07/30/2012 10:31 PM
RT @MickAxten: Please read and RT if you want to support pussyriot and oppose the Russian
governments position #pussyriot http://t.co/YVbH7mJj
Commenter's avatar
paulmorrisTIM on twitter
07/30/2012 10:27 PM
Fuck yeah Pussy Riot. http://t.co/nBfSNIVw
bridld83 on twitter
07/30/2012 10:24 PM
@PeteTheRed88 sounds like something you would get caught up in. http://t.co/qZpQlVL6
JessieJessup on twitter
07/30/2012 10:18 PM
Pussy Riot on trial in watershed case for Vladimir Putin's presidency http://t.co/uKAMNCZy
MickAxten on twitter
07/30/2012 09:46 PM
Please read and RT if you want to support pussyriot and oppose the Russian governments position
#pussyriot http://t.co/YVbH7mJj
WrightArchitect on twitter
07/30/2012 09:17 PM
Still no free political speech in Russia: "Pussy Riot" jailed; they offended the Orthodox Church!!!
