Elder reports: "Prosecutors have called for three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot to be jailed for three years after arguing they had insulted all of Russian Orthodoxy and posed a danger to society."
Pussy Riot demonstrators (from left) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Aliokhina during their trial. (photo: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA)
Pussy Riot Trial: Prosecutors Call for Three-Year Jail Term
07 August 12
Moscow court hears closing arguments in feminist band's trial for performing 'punk prayer' against Vladimir Putin in cathedral.
rosecutors have called for three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot to be jailed for three years after arguing they had insulted all of Russian Orthodoxy and posed a danger to society.
"They must be isolated from society," the federal prosecutor Alexei Nikiforov told the Moscow court on Tuesday. He and lawyers for the victims argued that if they were not jailed, they would strike again.
The three band members - Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich - have been charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing a "punk prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral.
In their closing arguments, prosecutors argued the women were not carrying out a political act, but acting on deep hatred for Russian Orthodoxy. "They violated the traditions of our country," Nikiforov said.
He said the fact that "no politicians" were named in the punk band's song proved it was not a political act. The name and chorus of the song Pussy Riot performed was called Virgin Mary, Chase Putin Out.
Prosecutors presented the women as dangerous feminists.
"All the defendants talked about being feminists and said that is allowed in the Russian Orthodox church," said Yelena Pavlova, a lawyer for several of the nine victims who claimed they were insulted by Pussy Riot's performance. "This does not correspond with reality. Feminism is a mortal sin," she said.
The Pussy Riot case has reawakened anti-government passions that first emerged when Putin announced last autumn that he was returning to the presidency. Opposition activists have called for an impromptu protest to be held on 19 August.
Addressing the court in the afternoon, defence lawyers argued that the women's performance was an act of opposition against Putin and was not motivated by religious hatred. "The 'prayer' they sang was a political one," lawyer Violetta Volkova said.
Mark Feygin, another lawyer for the women, gave an impassioned speech warning of the consequences of a conviction, which ended with applause from the journalists witnessing the trial.
"Russia has no rule of law. Russia has no justice system," he said. "Nothing has changed from Soviet times."
He warned that a guilty verdict would "definitely tear up relations between society and government".
Society would never forgive the government for jailing three innocent women, he said, warning that tensions, including between society and the church, were building to similar levels as before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
He appeared to accept a conviction as a foregone conclusion: "If the order is handed down from above to jail them, then they will be jailed. This is a political case from beginning to end."
Pussy Riot have argued that their February performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was designed to call attention to the politicisation of the Orthodox church, which was a key agitator for Putin's re-election. Church officials have said their trial has been willed by God.
The women have apologised if they offended any Orthodox believers.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that their apologies were insincere and that the victims had "the right not to be merciful". They argued that the leader of the church, Patriarch Kirill, had been personally insulted and was "not just an ordinary citizen".
The three women addressed the court on Tuesday and urged the judge to deliver a not guilty verdict. A verdict is expected in coming days.
See Also: Madonna Calls for Release of Pussy Riot
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Why doesn't the Guardian talk about Pussy Riot's politics. they are a right wing punk band pushing neo-liberalism on Russia. We forget that behind their provocative stance is a right wing agenda.
I don't think they should go to jail but beyond that I really don't give a damn what happens to them. Maybe they should move to the US and play their music on Wall Street or in front of the Pentagon. Let's see how long they stay out of jail over here in the land of the free and the home of the ignorant.
RMDC, can you point me to any articles or other writings about Pussy Riot talking about their "right-wing" "neo-liberal" politics? would be interested in reading more about them.
Most of the case is circumstantial. They emerged as part of the anti-Putin protests at the time of the elections. While many protesters were communists and indigenous, many others were funded by front groups which were funded and organized by the National Endowment for Democracy (a CIA front) or George Soros's Open Society.
"It should also be noted that Russia's recent elections were marred by election monitoring NGO "GOLOS" attempting to call the results fraudulent. It would be later revealed that this NGO, billed as "independent" by the Western press, was in fact funded and directed by the US State Department via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Attempts by Wall Street and London to frame the elections as fraudulent set the groundwork for a wider campaign of political destabilization - a campaign "Pussy Riot" has now become a key player in."
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/08/who-or-what-is-russias-pussy-riot.html
They fit perfectly in the M.O. of the "color revolutions" that have swept most of the post-soviet nations which are always financed by covert US groups Their goal is to install governments that open local markets to US exploitation. Putin is against that, trying to take back the Russian economy from the western predators let in by Yeltsin.
http://freepussyriot.org/content/lyrics-songs-pussy-riot
This is a tough call. The call to violence has always been powerful in liberatory art. But in the context of NED sponsored protests, the call to violence becomes reactionary and right-wing.
I can understand the objection of the communists to Putin. They want him to move faster against neo-liberalism (i.e., austerity, lower wages, no social program, support for corporations). But that's not Pussy Riots message. They want "total freedom" and that only means economic freedom these days. We need more regulations on capital and investment. Freedom is not the mantra of today. The neo-liberals have stolen that. Check out David Harvey's book on Neo-liberalism.
The call to freedom through violence is a strange thing. In the hands of a Frantz Fanon it is a good thing. In the hands of US imperialism and capitalism (same things), it is a very bad thing. The current wars are always about "freedom" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. Freeing Lybia, Freeing Syria. That's not freedom. That's neo-liberalism at work.
I do think it is a mistake though to dismiss/write off/attribute the "color revolutions" simply to US covert groups...i agree they have always been there trying to steer things in the direction they wanted them to go (as you describe, neo-liberal free market economies) which made it very tough, if not impossible for democratic lefties (such as Boris Kagarlitsky in Russia) to get any traction but or the "real" left in Poland as opposed to the Walesa wing...who i recently heard has now "embraced Romney") but the anti-soviet/ant i-stalinist mass movements that developed were nonetheless genuine and for the most part "organic"...was Vaclav Havel simply a western stooge?
thanks again for the response and i will keep looking for other pieces (would be curious if either Kagarlitsky or Stephen Cohen -- both people i have always tended to agree with in their take on Russia -- has written anything on the whole Pussy Riot thing.
painting swastika in Brooklyn ...
the same hate crime here and there. Where free speech ends and hate starts?
"desecration" of course is in the eye of the beholder. If it had been a protest in a US Catholic Church against the Church's position on homosexuality or denying women access to birth control would these be "hate crimes"? Not in my book....so, it depends on what the protest is, how it is conducted etc., (in other words, "means" matter and the ends don't justify them).
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