Pussy Riot Found Guilty

Pussy Riot Found Guilty (975343)	Home · Maps · About

Home > OTChat

[ Post a New Response | Return to the Index ]

(975343)	view threaded
Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by SMAZ on Fri Aug 17 11:08:51 2012 fiogf49gjkf0d Russian punk band found guilty of hooliganism By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News \| The Lookout Three members of Pussy Riot -- a Russian punk band and feminist collective that mocked Russian president Vladamir Putin during a "punk prayer" in a Moscow cathedral--have been found guilty of hooliganism driven by religious hatred and offending religious believers a judge ruled. Sentencing is expected later today. Judge Marina Syrova announced the verdict from a district court in central Moscow, about two miles from the Christ the Saviour Cathedral where the guerrilla group performed its "flash" stunt. The band members--Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30--were arrested on March 3, several weeks after the performance, and charged with "hooliganism." They've been in jail ever since. Their trial drew enormous international interest, sparking catcalls from international free-speech advocates and spawning dozens of protests--including demonstrations in more than two dozen cities worldwide on Friday before the verdict was announced. Madonna, Bjork, Paul McCartney and Courtney Love were among a long list of musicians to come out in support of Pussy Riot, calling on the Russian government to set the band members free. Last week in Berlin, more than 400 people joined a protest led by electro-singer Peaches. "In one of the most extravagant displays," the Associated Press said, "Reykjavik Mayor Jon Gnarr rode through the streets of the Icelandic capital in a Gay Pride parade ... dressed like a band member--wearing a bright pink dress and matching balaclava--while lip-synching to one of Pussy Riot's songs." What started as "a punk-infused political prank," London's Independent said, "has rapidly snowballed into one of the most notorious court cases in post-Soviet Russian history." Five members of the group, which formed in 2011, were arrested in January after a video of a Putin-baiting performance in Moscow's Red Square circulated online. They were detained for several hours by police, fined and released, NPR said. But the 10-member Pussy Riot--inspired by the American "riot grrrl" movement and bands like Bikini Kill--vowed more protest performances. Pussy Riot's stunt at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, was a response, they said, to Patriarch Kirill's public support of Putin in the build-up to Russia's presidential election. Putin won a third term as president in March. "Holy Mother, send Putin packing!" the group sang. The Guardian called the trial, which began on July 30, "worse than Soviet era." "By the end of the first week of Pussy Riot's trial," the Guardian's Miriam Elder wrote last week, "everyone in the shabby Moscow courthouse was tired. Guards, armed with submachine guns, grabbed journalists and threw them out of the room at will. The judge, perched in front of a shabby Russian flag, refused to look at the defense. And the police dog--a 100 [pound] black Rottweiler--no longer sat in the corner she had occupied since the start of Russia's trial of the year, but barked and foamed at the mouth as if she were in search of blood." Lawyers for the women complained during the trial that the trio were being starved and tortured in prison. Two threatened to go on a hunger strike after they were initially jailed. "Their treatment has caused deep disquiet among many Russians, who feel the women are--to coin a phrase from the 1967 trial of members of the Rolling Stones--butterflies being broken on a wheel," the BBC's Daniel Sandford wrote. Syrova was subjected to unspecified threats during the trial, Russian authorities announced on Thursday--assigning bodyguards to protect her before and after she announced the verdict. Several Russian pop stars, though, questioned the outpouring of support for Pussy Riot. "What is so great about Pussy Riot that all these international stars support them?" Russian singer Valeria wrote on her website, according to Reuters. "They must be saying this because someone ordered them to." "Art and politics are inseparable for us," the band said in an interview with the online newspaper Gazeta.ru in February. "We try to make political art. Performances and their rehearsals are our job. Life in Pussy Riot takes a lot of time."
Post a New Response

(975420)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; Obama "Disappointed"
Posted by Olog-hai* on Fri Aug 17 15:23:59 2012, in response to Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by SMAZ on Fri Aug 17 11:08:51 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d . . . but no further than that. AP via Washington Post White House says Obama ‘disappointed’ by verdict against Russian punk band By Associated Press Updated: Friday, August 17 2012, 1:31 PM WASHINGTON — A White House spokesman says President Barack Obama is disappointed by the two-year prison sentence imposed on a punk band in Russia for protesting president Vladimir Putin (POO’-tihn). The sentence handed down to the provocative band Pussy Riot follows a trial seen around the world as an emblem of Russia’s intolerance of dissent. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday, “The United States is disappointed by the verdict, including the disproportionate sentences that were granted.” While the group’s behavior was offensive to some, Earnest said, the Obama administration has “serious concerns about the way that these young women have been treated by the Russian judicial system.” The band members were arrested in March after performing a “punk prayer” to save Russia from Putin.
Post a New Response

(975469)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by Olog-hai* on Fri Aug 17 17:09:29 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; Obama "Disappointed", posted by Olog-hai on Fri Aug 17 15:23:59 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Just a call to "review" rather than demands for their immediate release. Politico State Dept.: Russia should 'review' Pussy Riot case By BYRON TAU \| 8/17/12 12:18 PM EDT The State Department expressed its concern over the two-year jail sentence given to a Russian punk band over an anti-government stunt. "The United States is concerned about both the verdict and the disproportionate sentences handed down by a Moscow court in the case against the members of the band Pussy Riot and the negative impact on freedom of expression in Russia," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. "We urge Russian authorities to review this case and ensure that the right to freedom of expression is upheld," Nuland said. The band was convicted of "hooliganism" after an unauthorized performance in a Moscow cathedral where they performed a punk prayer to save the country from President Vladmir Putin. While we understand the group's behavior was offensive to some, we have serious concerns about the way that these young women have been treated by the Russian judicial system," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Post a New Response

(975471)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by RockParkMan* on Fri Aug 17 17:10:06 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by Olog-hai on Fri Aug 17 17:09:29 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d IAWTP!!!
Post a New Response

(975556)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by SelkirkTMO* on Fri Aug 17 19:12:06 2012, in response to Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by SMAZ on Fri Aug 17 11:08:51 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d This little ditty has REALLY pissed off Russians and will come back to haunt the pooty. Even hardliners have noticed that this isn't good.
Post a New Response

(975573)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by RockParkMan* on Fri Aug 17 20:00:30 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by SelkirkTMO on Fri Aug 17 19:12:06 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d BO should have bitched.
Post a New Response

(975575)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by SelkirkTMO* on Fri Aug 17 20:02:47 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by RockParkMan on Fri Aug 17 20:00:30 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d It would only invite splashback over some of our own incarcerations. This whole thing sucks, but anything said over here would not have mattered. I recall Hillary making some comments a few weeks back about it for what it isn't worth. Rest assured though, folks in Russia aren't too impressed with the outcome.
Post a New Response

(975579)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by Allan* on Fri Aug 17 20:07:16 2012, in response to Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by SMAZ on Fri Aug 17 11:08:51 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d "What is so great about Pussy Riot that all these international stars support them?" Russian singer Valeria wrote on her website, according to Reuters. "They must be saying this because someone ordered them to." She probably said that because she was ordered to.
Post a New Response

(975582)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by RockParkMan* on Fri Aug 17 20:12:19 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by Allan on Fri Aug 17 20:07:16 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d ayeppa.
Post a New Response

(975591)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty
Posted by SelkirkTMO* on Fri Aug 17 21:32:26 2012, in response to Pussy Riot Found Guilty, posted by SMAZ on Fri Aug 17 11:08:51 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Some education on Russia, and the arts. Olog might want to take notice of how long this goes back over there ... http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/chatter/pussy-riot-russia-Putin-sentence The punk protestors' two-year prison term fits a centuries-old pattern of harsh treatment for those who buck the political culture. Gregory FeiferAugust 17, 2012 14:02 Three young women from Pussy Riot -- a collective of punk-inspired artists and protestors -- were handed a harsh, two years prison term today, for performing a protest in one of Moscow's main cathedrals. The sentence against the fresh-faced young women, two of whom are mothers to small children, appeared shockingly excessive. Harsh punishment for artistic protest has a storied tradition in Russia, where most people have generally supported strong leaders criticized by the educated elite. Monks in the northern principalities were among the first "dissidents" who objected to Moscow's imposition of harsh rules as it conquered neighboring principalities in the 16th century. Rather than denouncing the institution of tsarism, however, they criticized leaders' moral character. The leader's beneficent impulses were seen to be thwarted by a conniving court, a pattern that remained for centuries in a country where extreme living conditions put the interests of the collective above the individual, who has traditionally been seen as weak and unable to survive alone. Even today, President Vladimir Putin casts himself in the mold of the good tsar surrounded by bad nobles--ministers and others who take the knocks for the country's myriad problems and catastrophes. Miserable conditions for the vast majority of Russians who were serfs -- essentially slaves -- prompted some of Russia's first intellectuals to action in the 18th century. They suffered constant threat of censorship and punishment. Among the very first, a minor nobleman named Alexander Radishchev condemned serfdom in his travelogue Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (1790). Arrested and condemned to death, his sentence was lessened after he begged the supposedly enlightened Catherine the Great for forgiveness. He was sent to Siberia in shackles instead. Pushkin, Tolstoy and other of Russia's greatest literary figures faced censorship and threat of punishment. Dostoevsky's death sentence in 1849 was commuted after a mock execution to four years in a Siberian labor colony. The tsar's harsh treatment of critics soon helped prompt a tradition of radicalism among writers who increasingly called for revolution. Most prominent among them, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, whose novel What Is to be Done? (1862) set the standard, also earned him a mock execution before his banishment to Siberia, where he eventually died at age 61. Russia's avant-garde and other modernist movements in art and literature seemed set to prosper after the Bolsheviks took power in 1917. However, Stalin put an end to artistic freedom by 1930, when socialist realism promoting communism became the only accepted form. Writers and artists were routinely sent to the Gulag along with the tens of millions of others who suffered and died under conditions Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously helped expose in his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archiapelago. Solzhenitsyn's own camp sentence was for criticizing Stalin in a letter to a friend. Later exiled, he settled in the United States, where he tapped into the old Russian suspicion of the individual, criticizing westerners for their weakness, materialism and weak moral fiber. He supported Putin after his return to Russia in the 1990s. Post-Soviet freedom of expression had taken the political bite out of art by then. However, Putin's revival of the traditional political culture recently gave rise to groups such as the street art collective Voina, or war, which has posted videos of members setting a police truck on fire and conceived the self-described feminist punk group Pussy Riot. Like the tsars who used strict punishment to make examples in a vast territory they could barely govern, Putin is sticking to his old script of cracking down on the slightest dissent. Although risky, that still resonates with many Russians for whom feminism is deeply suspected if not feared. Jailing the band's members for exercising their constitutional right to free expression may appear utterly illogical to the outside world, which would otherwise have never heard of or cared for Pussy Riot. But it fits a long pattern in Russian history. Of course whether Friday's sentence helps ignite more protest outside the urban middle class remains to be seen. That will have to happen for the country to break out of its traditional cycle of protest and punishment.
Post a New Response

(975688)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by SMAZ* on Sat Aug 18 10:01:48 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by Olog-hai on Fri Aug 17 17:09:29 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d So now you favor profaning churches?
Post a New Response

(975689)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by RockParkMan* on Sat Aug 18 10:06:56 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by SMAZ on Sat Aug 18 10:01:48 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d That "church" has been taken over by Putin just as some US churches are owned by the GOP.
Post a New Response

(975691)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by Dutchrailnut* on Sat Aug 18 10:08:08 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Aug 18 10:06:56 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d I thought the GOP is owned by certain Churches ;-)
Post a New Response

(975733)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by SMAZ* on Sat Aug 18 10:56:43 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Aug 18 10:06:56 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d If the Pussy Riot church protest had happened in America, Olog would be calling for the death penalty
Post a New Response

(975734)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by RockParkMan* on Sat Aug 18 10:57:45 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by SMAZ on Sat Aug 18 10:56:43 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Probably true.
Post a New Response

(975863)	view threaded
Re:EMPTY GESTURE Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by RockParkMan* on Sat Aug 18 14:29:01 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by SMAZ on Sat Aug 18 10:56:43 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d why don't these hypocrites just STFU. Forgivness, BAH!!! http://news.yahoo.com/russian-orthodox-church-forgives-pussy-riot-120400925.html
Post a New Response

(975911)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by SelkirkTMO* on Sat Aug 18 16:50:20 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by Dutchrailnut on Sat Aug 18 10:08:08 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Correct! :)
Post a New Response

(975916)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by Fred G* on Sat Aug 18 16:58:03 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Aug 18 16:50:20 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d your pal, Fred
Post a New Response

(976413)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by FYBklyn1959* on Sun Aug 19 19:22:23 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by Fred G on Sat Aug 18 16:58:03 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d LOL, even without the meme, that pic is hilarious. Obama is all "not this motherf%^&*&(er again!!" :)
Post a New Response

(976429)	view threaded
Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak
Posted by SelkirkTMO* on Sun Aug 19 19:58:03 2012, in response to Re: Pussy Riot Found Guilty; US State Department weak, posted by Fred G on Sat Aug 18 16:58:03 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Heh. :)
Post a New Response

[ Return to the Message Index ]