Strummer wrote:So, no mention of the frozen chicken stuck inside her vagina, or public sex in front of minors in a museum building?
Well I'm looking at the wiki on this. Looks like ONE of the members participated in a museum art exhibition that Russian state media spinned as an "orgy." There's no evidence the chicken thing happened:
Tolokonnikova was part of a performance in which couples were photographed having sex in the Timiryazev State Biology Museum in Moscow in February 2008.[153] This exhibitionist act was intended as a satire of Dmitry Medvedev's call to increase the birth rate in Russia,[154] but was typically described as an "orgy" by the media.[155] President Putin, in an interview about whether the prison sentence was justified, also invoked the defendants' prior actions in Voina stunts: "They had a group sex session in a public place. They then uploaded it onto the Internet. The authorities should have looked into this, too."[94] A notorious performance by Voina in St. Petersburg, in which a woman stole a chicken from a supermarket by stuffing it in her vagina, is sometimes cited by detractors of Pussy Riot. However, there is no evidence that members of Moscow-based Pussy Riot participated in this action.
This is getting out in the weeds here, whatever the art thing in that museum was. If you have NONBIASED, non-state owned media, original reporting you can cite, then feel free to post it.
Why all the connection to Putin? Putin being asked what he thinks of them all the time? Why is it always about Putin and everything is always up to him? If this really was JUST common indecency in a museum then why was it a federal matter and not local.
I would presume it's their anti-Putin views that made them a national story in the first place, and that the hammer was brought down because of the anti-Putin stuff.Weren't they convicted of "holliganism?" The Russian catch-all law, that the Soviets used too? That American reporter banned from Russia, he was arrested for "hooliganism" just for being difficult about reporting on Chernobyl.
They do sound like real pistols though
:
Many international artists, politicians, and musicians voiced support for the release of Pussy Riot, or expressed concern about the fairness of their trial, including Madonna, who openly expressed her support at a Moscow concert,[157] Paul McCartney,[158] and Aung San Suu Kyi.[159] While acknowledging the support, members of Pussy Riot distanced themselves from Western artists, and
reiterated their opposition to the capitalist model of art as commodity:[160] One of them, identified as Orange, said:
We’re flattered, of course, that Madonna and Björk have offered to perform with us.
But the only performances we’ll participate in are illegal ones. We refuse to perform as part of the capitalist system, at concerts where they sell tickets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_riot#Claims_for_moral_damages
They have a chance to make some real money in the US, if they want it. I wonder if they'll stick to anti-capitalism and not making any money off their music.
Clearly, these are dissidents and their civil disobedience protests are for shock value to get their message across and they were looking to get arrested. Real justice would be a gradual approach to something like this, politics and art pushing the lines of free speech. You don't just throw people into prison for years.
Were they ever charged in municipal or provincial courts, or just all federal charges, seems like they were singled out for harsh punishment because of the anti-Putin part.
French singer Mireille Mathieu, who has frequently performed in Russia, was one of the few western entertainers to speak out against Pussy Riot, saying they had committed a sacrilege. Nevertheless, she asked for “indulgence” for the three women.[161]
Nobody should go to prison for "sacriledge," not in a Western democracy anyhow, that belongs in a religious theocracy.
A letter of support from 120 members of the German parliament, the Bundestag, was sent to the Russian Ambassador to Germany, Vladimir Grinin. It described proceedings against the women as disproportionate and draconian.[162] On August 9, 2012, 200 Pussy Riot supporters in Berlin marched, wearing colored balaclavas, in a show of support for the group.[163] Attending the trial, British MP and Shadow Foreign Office Minister for Human Rights, Kerry McCarthy, also backed the group, describing proceedings as “surreal”.[164] Lech Wałęsa criticised the church performance as “tasteless”, but nevertheless wrote to Putin urging him to pardon the women.[165][166]
Amnesty International called the conviction “a bitter blow for freedom of expression”.[88] Hugh Williamson, of Human Rights Watch, stated that the “charges and verdict ... distort both the facts and the law ... These women should never have been charged with a hate crime and should be released immediately.”[167] ARTICLE 19,[168] Freedom House,[169] and the International Federation for Human Rights also issued statements condemning the sentence.[170] On September 21, 2012, the Feminist Press published an e-book entitled Pussy Riot! A Punk Prayer for Freedom to raise funds for the legal defense team.
So what was the conviction for? A hate crime? Religious offense?
Anything else they did, the museum art thing or whatever, that's a separate matter from this conviction.
P.S. back on topic to the colbert interview, they said there's a new anti-gay law being talked about, to outlaw "gay extremism." According to them, that means anyone even saying they are gay.
They're in the US working with human rights groups looking at prison issues, and they were doing that in Europe. One thing is for sure, they did some hard time over their beliefs. And they never hurt anyone. This was all civil disobedience and really innocent stuff here -- singing in church, and I guess someone said one of them urniated but I've never seen the details on that but really, are we talking crimes of the century here?
