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Pussy Riot are risking their lives

call from MEP Werner Schulz

US daily Newsweek reveals that the girls sentenced to two years in labour camp for an anti Putin punk prayer could be transferred to a penal colony far from the capitol city. According to their lawyer, Ms. Violeta Volkova, in that sort of remote jails "everything could happen, from rape to murder". and the guards would have threatened the singers by telling them the colonies "would be prepared to receive their clients". On October, 1 the appeal hearing should take place, but the magazine doubts that they can ever win. 

Volkova asked for permission for Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutchevic and Maria Alyokhina to remain in jail in Moscow. 


In the meanwhile the world takes stance for them. Yoko Ono awarded the band with the Yoko Ono and John Lennon Prize for Peace 2012. 


We publish the call of MEP Werner Schulz for them to receive this year's Sakharov's Prize. 


Proposal of Pussy Riot for the Sakharov Prize 2012       
(by Werner Schulz MEP)


as represented by:  Nadezhda Andreyevna Tolokonnikova / Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina 


Through a courageous, spectacular and creative performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on 21 February 2012, the three artists from the band succeeded in giving voice to the pent up political criticism of the autocratic power system in Russia and of the blurring of the lines between that system and the Russian Orthodox Church, in a setting where it was bound to have an impact.


The acts of protest and the arrest of these three young women, taken with the conditions of their detention – which border on torture – and their sentencing to two years in a labour camp, have done far more to focus the world’s attention on the unscrupulous restriction of civil rights and the absence of the rule of law in Russia than did the earlier murders of journalists or the wealth of new, repressive laws. The band provoked the system of “managed democracy” to the point of unmasking itself: President Putin’s statements, suggesting that the women had learned their lesson and indicating that he was expecting a mild sentence stand as evidence of the arbitrary administration of justice and make clear who the highest judge in Russia really is.

The women are accused of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”, although there is no indication of that to be found in the video of their Punk Prayer or the accompanying text describing the political motives for the performance. Their imploring punk prayer: “Mother of God, o Virgin, drive Putin out!” is of a piece with the slogan “Russia without Putin”, chanted by thousands at the mass demonstrations before the presidential elections. Their performance was not aimed at the religion: on the contrary, it picks up on a tradition within the Russian Orthodox Church of uttering a quick prayer to Mother Mary in the hope that she will help ward off evil. The target of the band’s protest was President Putin, who is venerated by the Church’s clergy like a heaven-sent saint, and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, who called on believers to vote for this president and to stay away from the protests. 


The three women are the subjects of an unparalleled smear campaign in Russia’s state-run and toe-the-line media which amounts to a modern witch hunt. The state prosecutor claimed that they were possessed by demons and had performed a devilish dance in the Church! This ignores both the artistic aspect of the political performance and the fact that radical forms of protest are necessary at a time when the Russian state is shifting noticeably back towards totalitarianism and it is difficult make oneself heard to rouse people to resist. While many are disappointed and have opted for internal exile, Pussy Riot has protested publically and effectively against paternalism, perpetual control, hypocrisy and small-minded morality. Their shrill prayer reflects the secret desire of many that Russia should free itself at long last from the Putin regime and his secret service caste.


The EU has been working to find a common set of values with Russia for years and Russia has entered into international commitments along those lines, but this case shines a spotlight on the blatant discrepancies between pretension and reality. We find in the court’s decision the untenable assertion that feminism contributes to religious hate. Here we hear the disquieting consonance between the Kremlin and the clergy, and their intent to denigrate the successes of Western emancipation and prevent them from penetrating further into Russian society.


This affair offers a telling example of how Russia is sliding backward into archaic times: justified criticism of chief priests, scribes and Pharisees is dismissed as blasphemy, its utterers persecuted, much as Jesus of Nazareth experienced long ago. Yet, Pussy Riot has fearlessly and creatively championed values embodied by Andrei Sakharov: freedom of thought and the independence of science and art.

 

21 September 2012

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