Russia's "Pussy Riot" On Trial for Cathedral Protest

why is the media talking about three of them if there was four girls?
"On 21 February, shortly before the reelection of Vladimir Putin, the three performed their song “Mother of God, Banish Putin” in a Moscow Cathedral. When the video of the performance was initially released on YouTube it was only viewed by a few hundred people, in the days following the girl’s arrests views shot up to over a million."




what happened to the fourth one? is she dead? is she a daughter of "someone" and that's why out of the story?

maybe the story itself is some kind of a joke?
they don't look scared about being jailed for 3 Years at all...




just curious...

reply to post by mikemck1976


An interesting take on the trial from Mike Whitney on Counterpunch.

So, let’s do a little thought-experiment and dig a little deeper into this matter. Let’s say an all-girl punk-rock band stormed into St Patrick’s Cathedral or a major Jewish synagogue in downtown Manhattan and commandeered the altar so they could execute a raucous and blasphemous performance that derides believers as well as Barack Obama. Do you think the media would be as supportive as they have with Pussy Riot? Of course not. The whole idea is absurd, right? So, what’s the difference here? Putin, that’s the difference. The media is after Putin.

And–another thing– do you think the girls would have been escorted out as considerately as they were in Moscow or do you think that they would have been tasered, pepper-sprayed, bludgeoned and dragged off in chains by a small army of New York’s finest? Everyone knows the answer to that. They’d probably all still be in the hospital today. You don’t mess with NYPD! The media doesn’t like to point out civil liberties violations at home. They’d rather point the finger at someone else. That’s why there are nearly 2,500 articles defending poor, abused Pussy Riot and not a word about Bradley Manning, Julien Assange or the thousands of Occupy protesters who were gassed, pummeled and incarcerated during the protests last year.

www.counterpunch.org...

Its a fair point that few countries would have allowed this open dissent to power. I'm not agreeing that Putin or the Russian system is perfect, but it think the US and here in the UK, we have bigger problems on dissent closer to home.....

reply to post by Peruvianmonk


Let's stick to the issue on hand.

No point in dragging in the past, if mistakes had been acknowledged and progressed from it, or there will be no end to the blame game, dating back to year 1 of human civilisation.

What is happening now is Putin trying to play god-on-earth, with dominion over life and death of humankind with his treatment of dissenters and public protestors to his tyranny. He is only setting himself up to be screwed big time, for mankind had already woken up. It could only happen in Stalin's era, but russians today would be fools to let history repeat itself without a fight soon.

Should the hypothetical situations occur as you mythically claimed elsewhere, it will be dealt accordingly, to the level and state of mankind's then progress. Each minute is a lesson learnt for humanity. Thus, do stick to the issue on hand for discussions, and hypothetical myths unrelated to the issue of the topic to your own imagination, unless you have another agenda here.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Are you following me?

It's called a comparison. Or should we not relate any societal and political context to this case, just take it in isolation? We are sure to learn lessons from it then.

Should the hypothetical situations occur as you mythically claimed elsewhere, it will be dealt accordingly, to the level and state of mankind's then progress.

Seriously, your faux philosophical ramblings are enough to send me to sleep.

It is with sadness as I read that the singers had been incarcerated for 2 yrs.

And even greater sadness to hear supporters of that decision made that claim that they had 'hurt' the church and their faith.

1. ) In truth, what truly matters in A CHURCH? Our Creator or worshippers? WHO is the more important one?

Christianity teaches us compassion, as our Messiah had taught. He came specifically for the Jews, but because there were gentiles whom had sought to be saved through his teachings to know our Creator better, our Messiah had empathy for them, and saved them, and through it all, his teachings was then for all mankind whom accepted his teachings, to follow the civilisational and progressive path that our Creator had meant for us, so that we may all evolve.

But the church leaders and congregation are horrifying and terrifyingly uncompassionate, and had even demanded for stiffer sentences for those singers, whom may had sung badly, but still, is a prayer to our Creator through Mary, the human mother of our Messiah who had loved and cared for him for decades, who that church equally pays respect to.

Who had been hurt? Would our mighty Creator had been hurt by those words sung, He who had loved us all despite our ignorances and flaws but hope that we may change over time with our given free will? Had he ignored our ancestorial prophets when they too questioned Him, in less than favorable terms, as recorded in the holy texts? He did not, and even explained why compassionately and not instead of a thunderbolt to them.

Or were the hypocrites the ONLY ones whom claimed pious piety in outwardly form are 'hurt', but have only hatred in their hearts and horrifyingly praise the Lord for the incarceration of years for those women?


2.) In a democracy there IS a separation between the church and the state. What happens on private grounds remain in private grounds, unless a civil suit is sought for. But for the State to condemn those girls as 'criminals' outright is far beyond democratic principles. This is tyranny at play by the State and the Church in COLLUSION.

During the early days prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, youths had done what those girls did - to mock the church, not out of hatred for our Creator, but simply because of the collusion between the avarised church and the deluded god-on-earth wannabe Tsar Peter.

The Church then had preferred to lick the boots of the Tsar and his minions, enrich themselves, rather than to protect and elevate the lives of the suffering and hungry serfs. They grew rich while the serfs were bullied by both State and Church to be as herd animals instead of the dignity to live as a free human should.

As such, that hatred grew from those repression of centuries, so much that Karl Marx and Lenin had deemed religion as the regression of mankind, and sought and had taught to end it.

Today, in a supposed 'democracy', ( that is getting more like 'democratic' republic of North Korea), the russian church leaders and some of its congregation are repeating history...

Today, with finality, the judiciary - supposed 'protectors' and 'interpretators' of the 'constitution' ( whatever that means in a dictatorship) had deemed 'justice served'. But for who? Our common Creator, or the hypocrite church and the god-on-Earth wannabe tyrant Putin?

Why?!! why ?!! why?!! cannot...humankind learn.......?

The ones who are protesting against the system, the corruption and the rot are the ones who get incarcerated.

Thrown in prison for doing what the average person is only able to do - protesting, with not one single person even gotten hurt!

Thrown in prison in the name of some god or some religion - under the pretenses of "desecration"....in the same way and under the same pretenses as people were thrown in prisons or killed in the middle-ages.

What a prime example of a corrupt and rotten government, and what a prime example of a corrupt and rotten church.

Note: THAT government is weakest which incarcerates those people having a different opinion - it's NOT a sign of strength or a display of power. It's a display of weakness. And all/most of those governments who imprisoned or killed people in the past for those very same reasons USUALLY didn't last long.

I hope this might spawn some sort of revolution or at least more like-minded protests. The WORST thing people can do is duck and just accept - maybe P.R. was just the beginning. Those corrupt gvts and with them those corrupt churches need to be eliminated from this planet, it's usually the roots of all evil, no matter whether in Russia or anywhere else.

I saw a picture of one of these women using a chainsaw on a cross. This is free speech? Ok, well if I turned up at her house and threw rocks in her windows that would also be free speech because I don't think her lifestyle is valid?

Why are those under 35 so stupid they can't see their own stupidity?

If this happened at a mosque in NYC, it would be called a hate crime.

The "punk rock" band is a joke, they made their cause look foolish in Russia and could easily just be tools of Putin to distract from his corruption because the Orthodox Church is not an unpopular institution in Russia. Their support mostly comes from washed up Western celebrities with the occasional support from the diplomats eager for a colour revolution a la Ukraine 2004.

After all the appreciation for this kind of People, coming from France and other EU countries, I don't understand why artist Petr Pavlensky is being kept in a French prison for burning a couple of doors of a french bank!

I assume president Macron will get Pavlensky out of prison and grant him French citizenship and the Legion of Honor for Pavlensky's outstanding anti-Putin perfornance.