Free Pussy Riot! SVBD PSRT

Pussy Riot for the Eurovision!

 

They were arrested for critiscing Putin.
Free Pussy Riot!

 

No way mate, France has got to win it this year to give hope to the People.

 

Pussy Riot Trio Defiant As 'Hooliganism' Trial Begins





Three members of punk group claim charges mark start of campaign of repression

One of the most talked-about trials in Russia for years began in a Moscow courtroom yesterday, with three girls from the punk group Pussy Riot facing charges of hooliganism inspired by religious hatred that could see them jailed for up to seven years.

Their crime was to burst into Moscow's biggest cathedral in February and perform a shrieky key punk tune calling on the Virgin Mary to kick Vladimir Putin out of office. Three of the five women involved were arrested two weeks later, and after being refused bail, have been held in prison. The powerful Orthodox Church has refused to call for clemency for the women, and while many Russians found their stunt distasteful, the harsh response has brought public opinion round to their side.

After lengthy preliminary hearings, the trial proper started yesterday. "I thought the church loved all its children," said Maria Alekhina, 24, in her opening statement. "But it seems the church loves only those children who love Putin." She, together with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trio looked pale but in good spirits, and were in combative mood, frequently prompting the judge to interject and silence them. "I can't say whether I admit the charges or not as I don't understand the charges," said Ms Alekhina at one point, to the frustration of the judge, who scolded her and suggested she was being deliberately obtuse. "You have a higher education. Do you speak Russian?" the judge asked angrily. The prosecution has said the three women are agents of Satan and are the tip of an iceberg of nefarious interests bent on destroying the Russian state.

Yesterday the women admitted to making an "ethical mistake" but denied any criminal activity.

Lawyers for the women rejected the charges as "absurd" and said there had been numerous procedural violations in the build-up to the trial. The court has rejected most of the motions the defence has put forward, including a request to call Mr Putin and the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church as witnesses in the case. The defence says that harsh words from Mr Putin about the stunt could prejudice the court, as well as comments the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave the day before the hearing started, suggesting that in other countries the punishment for such an act would be even harsher.

The trial comes nearly three months after Mr Putin returned to the Kremlin amid large street protests. His response to the protest movement has been crackdown rather than compromise. Laws have been introduced that increase the fines for unsanctioned demonstrations and force all NGOs that receive any grants from abroad to identify themselves as "foreign agents".

In a new development, Alexei Navalny, a blogger who has targetted the allegedly corrupt dealings of government officials and became one of the de facto leaders of the protests, was called into the Investigative Committee yesterday to answer questions about alleged misdeeds when he worked as a consultant for a regional governor several years ago. He said charges against him were due to be announced this morning, and insists he did no wrong and that the investigation against him was politically motivated.

In her opening statement at the Pussy Riot trial, Ms Samutsevich said: "I see [the charges] as the start of a campaign of authoritarian repressive measures aimed at lowering the political activity of citizens. Its aim is create a sense of fear among those citizens who take active part in politics."

The case continues today.

Punk vs Putin: the three defendants

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

Born in Norlisk, the 23-year-old is the youngest of the three. She studied philosophy at university in Moscow and is part of dissident art group "War", which staged a "fertility rite" in 2008 at Moscow museum mocking Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Maria Alekhina

The 24-year-old, who studies at the Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing in Moscow, is an active member of the Green Peace Council of Russia. She has protested against illegal felling in Krasnodar and in support of conservation projects at Lake Baikal.

Yekaterina Samutsevich

The eldest of the group (she turns 30 next month), she studied engineering at the Moscow Institute of Power and Engineering and later went on to work in a research lab developing software for submarines and missiles, according to Kommersant.

SOURCE: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 87976.html

 

Inside Story - The Punks, The Pulpit And The President

The trial of three members of a Russian punk group is under way for "hooliganism on the grounds of religious hatred". The band has refused to plead guilty but admitted that the show was a mistake. Questions have been raised if this is a suppression of freedom by a repressive president or simply punishment for bad behavior in a holy place. What is it about the case that has got Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, so riled up? Guests: Nina Khrushcheva, John Anderson, Svetlana Svistunova.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2toD1UGWG8[/video]

 

Russia's Pussy Riot band: A close look


In Moscow, the trial of the activist-feminist group known as Pussy Riot continues into its second week.

The case has captured both domestic and international attention, with the Russian opposition rallying around them as an anti-Putin symbol.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV1ew5m_7rY[/video]

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/au ... -statement

 

MMMM

Has someone Trademarked the name Pussy Riot?

Just asking...

 

Pussy Riot Verdict - Two Years In Jail

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd3Rv9yk9nA&feature=relmfu[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_fjE9bA5YU&feature=relmfu[/video]

 

The History of Pussy Riot, From Activist Art Origins to the Dramatic Trial and Final Sentence



August 18, 2012

With the swirl of statements, celebrity readings, and protests in support of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot surrounding their sentence of two years in prison camp in punishment for “hooliganism” that was announced today, it’s easy to forget that the collective began first and foremost as an activist art project. Pussy Riot’s founding members included a former member of Voina, the Russian group of absurdist, anarchist protest artists. Though the band sets itself apart from Voina, and Femen, an all-female Ukrainian protest collective whose signature is their toplessness, these three groups have something in common: their commitment to using art to provoke and advance social change.

Pussy Riot founder and former Voina member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova told the Guardian that “art is politics.” When asked if the band considered themselves protesters or artists, she responded, "We couldn't imagine ourselves without one or the other. We don't understand how an artist can think about society but say he's apolitical." In the timeline below, ARTINFO charts the founding and growth of Pussy Riot alongside the provocative political actions that landed them both in jail and in the international spotlight.

2006: Russian anarchist art collective Voina (Russian for “war”) is founded by artists Oleg Vorotnikov and wife Natalia Sokol. Future Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and husband Pyotr Verzilov also join on.

2009: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Pyotr Verzilov break from Voina. Verzilov continues to work under the name “Voina” but forms a separate faction from core members Oleg Vorotnikov and Natalia Sokol, who aren’t pleased with Verzilov. Later, Pussy Riot member Tyurya tells Vice that the group was most fond of Voina’s 2007-08 absurdist protest theatrics.

September 2011: Pussy Riot founded by Yekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Maria Alyokhina. The founders told Vice that after Putin put Dmitriy Medvedev in power, they “realized that this country needs a militant, punk-feminist, street band that will rip through Moscow's streets and squares, mobilize public energy against the evil crooks of the Putinist junta and enrich the Russian cultural and political opposition."

They also explain the meaning behind their dramatic name: “A female sex organ, which is supposed to be receiving and shapeless, suddenly starts a radical rebellion against the cultural order, which tries to constantly define it and show its appropriate place.”

December 4, 2011: Pussy Riot stages a concert on the roof of a detention center where protest leader and activist blogger Alexei Navalny is held in police custody.

January 20, 2012: The band performs in Moscow’s Red Square, occupying the public space to achieve political change. The group members compared it to the occupation of Tahrir Square in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times. The police took the band into custody but they were released after paying a fine.

February 21, 2012: Four members of the band play a protest set at the Russian Orthodox Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. The set lasted just five minutes before it was put to a stop. The band still had time to play their songs “Holy Shit” and “Madonna, Drive Putin Away.” They later said the performance was meant to highlight the “close relationship between the church and state,” according to Gothamist.

March 2012: Right before the March 4th presidential election, Pussy Riot members Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are arrested. On March 15, band member Yekaterina Samutsevich is arrested and the three women are placed under 24-hour video surveillance and charged with “hooliganism.” In the Russian legal system, criminal hooliganism means "a gross violation of public order, showing a disrespect for society," according to Buzzfeed.

April 5, 2012: Amnesty International announces support for the band and calls for their release.

July 30, 2012: The trial begins and brings up serious questions about the accountability of the Russian court system. The witnesses for the defense were not allowed entry into the trial, the prosecution called witnesses that had only seen the incident on TV, and the defense asked six times in five days for judge Marina Syrova (who has never presided over a felony trial) to be removed, according to Artinfo Russia.

August 2, 2012 While in London for the Olympics, Putin told the British press that there was "nothing good" about the performance, but that the three women "should not be judged too harshly."

August 7-8, 2012: The prosecution calls for a three year prison sentence. The next day, the band members give their final statements. Yekaterina Samutsevich argues that, in the end, Pussy Riot came out on top: “Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. The whole world now sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated.”

August 17, 2012: After a circus-like trial, a verdict of two years in prison camp for the members is announced. Former chess champion Garry Kasparov and dozens of others are arrested outside the court, while protesters gather outside of the Russian Embassies in New York and London to protest the ruling. The three women plan to appeal the verdict in the European Court of Human Rights, according to AFP.

This report was taken from here: http://artinfo.com/news/story/820033/th ... l-sentence

 

Pussy Riot is a Russian dyke band with 15 members and serves as evidence of the fact that if you try to fuck with Bad Vlad, you're gonna have a bad time. This was a no-name, shitty band that no one cared about until some of the members attempted to IRL troll Putin by throwing a surprise performance in a Cathedral. To absolutely no one's surprise, they were then v& by Bad Vlad. Putin once again demonstrated his boundless wisdom by protecting Mother Russia from shitty music, but for some reason, said vanning garnered a great deal of attention in the librul Western media and unleashed a massive shitstorm. Yeah, they're behind bars, probably getting sodomized with objects of various sizes. You may commence to fapping now.

 

Personally this would be an insta-ban but I can't tell if you're being ironic and satirising a some sort of Putin-sympathising propagandist; besides, I'm new to this mod-lark and am cautious. Either way, homophobic language is not acceptable here AT ALL and irony doesn't work well on the net, especially as a new member to the site. Official warning but don't be surprised if you're straight-up banned by someone else.

 

meh just banhammer me. not sure what i was doing... bit bored

 

Maybe not the best choice of words, but otherwise, valid point, I think. Running through a minefield and getting wasted just to show there's a minefield there, when everyone already seen the 'beware minefield' signs, that don't seem particularly smart or productive, especially as the public gonna forget all about it as soon as the next interesting story comes up.

 

Ah. It's all bullshit then. Just 'hey look at me' crap.

 

HAHA i think they're an art performance band - blah blah blah

Ivanovich what did you say about crass? "Fucken White, Middle Class Art School Wankers"

While i was reading about there past actions i felt as they were Ultra Artsy...thats about it blah blah blah



Good luck to them \m/

 

Hell, yeah. The world is being invaded by them. They probably all reptiles.