How everything is co-opted: the German fashion line Blush uses Russian feminist protest icons Pussy Riot, currently sitting in prison labor camps, to sell sheer panties. Via Ads of the World:
On the first anniversary of the Pussy Riot concert in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Berlin based Lingerie label blush supports the free pussy riot movement with a sexy protest march through icy Moscow (-15° C).
What is the punishment for compelling performance art? Two years to be spent in cramped, dirty, cold “corrective labor” camps, with possible abuse from guards or inmates, the Guardian reports:
Two members of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot have been sent to remote prison camps to serve their sentences, the group has said. Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women’s prison camp in Perm, a Siberian region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union’s harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons.
“These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices,” the band said via its Twitter accounty. They are expected to serve the rest of their sentences, which end in March 2014, in the camps, where conditions are reportedly dire.
Confusion reigned on Monday as relatives and lawyers tried to assess exactly where the women were sent.
Can you imagine Stalin making this kind of public statement? Visitors to Lenin’s tomb in Moscow have probably seen him looking several shades redder than his normal white hue. Tom Parfitt reports on the Russian president’s rather unstatesmanlike comments for the Telegraph:
Mr Putin made the observation on Thursday in one of his trademark pithy remarks during his first interview since his inauguration in May, with the Kremlin-controlled, English-language RT television channel.
“Some fans of group sex say that it’s better than one-on-one because, as with any collective work, you can skive off,” he said.
The comment came after the Russian leader had spoken about an orgy that was staged in Moscow’s state biology museum in 2008 which involved Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, one of three feminist activists of the Pussy Riot group who were jailed for two years for hooliganism last month after a politically charged trial…
Picture: Igor Mukhin (CC)
Via HuffPo
Some might find a gruesome murder that could be connected to supporters of Pussy Riot awfully convenient for the Putin administration. The bodies of two women were found beneath a message scrawled in their own blood: “Free Pussy Riot.”
Investigators have identified the murderer as Igor Danilevsky, who they say murdered the women as part of a bizarre scheme to pay off outstanding debt:
The man – a 38-year-old university professor named Igor Danilevsky – was detained Thursday in Kazan, Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Friday. It said Danilevsky wrote “Free Pussy Riot” on a wall in the victims’ blood because he wanted the deaths of the 38-year-old woman he dated and her mother, 76, to appear as if they were a “ritual killing.”
The Committee said Danilevsky had convinced the woman to take out a loan to repay his debts, and promised to marry her.
The two-year prison sentences handed down to Pussy Riot supposedly revealed how oppressive and backwards Putin’s Russia is, in contrast to our Western democracies. But now three colorfully ski-masked Germans who tried to stir a commotion at the historic Cologne Cathedral earlier this week are staring at the possibility of three years behind bars. Any guesses on what would happen to a U.S. Pussy Riot, assuming some sort of terrorism charges would be thrown at them?
Fascinating, is this only the beginning of the Pussy Riot saga? Who are the unrevealed members of the art-protest sleeper cell? Rolling Stone reports:
Russian police are searching for additional members of feminist punk band Pussy Riot involved in the February “punk prayer” protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin that resulted in prison sentences last week for three women who participated. Police haven’t said who or how many more people they’re looking for. Five masked protestors were part of the 40-second demonstration inside Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, though only three were arrested and tried. Pussy Riot is said to have more than 10 members.
Mark Feigin, a lawyer for Pussy Riot, believes authorities have surveillance footage from the February protest and are already aware of the other women’s identities. He said the search is a tool intended to put pressure on any members of the group who plan to continue protesting.
Pussy Riot are some of the most powerfully effective artist-dissidents of our era, so why does our news depict them as punkette Manic Pixie little girls lost? Michael Shean deconstructs:
The members of Pussy Riot have done something remarkable in modern Russia, both in their actions before their arrest and in their statements during trial and conviction: they have straight up called President Putin on this political floor show, and declared bluntly and loudly that the Emperor has no clothes.
What I did not expect was for the complete and utter marginalization of the three performers by the Western media. Perhaps it is naive of me to think that at least some major news outlets west of Moscow would try and handle the situation in a mature and factual manner, but from the very start these women have been pushed into the comfortable, sexualized box of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Игорь Мухин (CC)
[UPDATE: Pussy Riot sentenced to two years in prison.]
If there was ever any doubt that the judge would do what Vladimir Putin wanted, it has now been erased. Protests reacting to the verdict are in progress. Report from USA Today:
A Russian judge found three members of the provocative punk band Pussy Riot guilty of hooliganism on Friday, in one of the most closely watched cases in recent Russian history.
The judge said the three band members committed hooliganism driven by religious hatred and offending religious believers.
The three were arrested in March after a guerrilla performance in Moscow’s main cathedral calling for the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against Vladimir Putin, who was elected to a new term as Russia’s president a few days later.
They face a maximum seven years in prison. The sentence is to be handed down later Friday.
The case has attracted international attention as an emblem of Russia’s intolerance of dissent.
Has the “Pussy Riot ski mask” supplanted the Trayvon hoodie as the political protest fashion piece of the moment? Somehow I’m unable to envision NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg doing this. Reports the Iceland Review:
Reykjavík Mayor Jón Gnarr dressed as members of the Russian girl punk band Pussy Riot, who are currently on trial in Moscow for public protest, in this year’s Gay Pride parade. A banner with the words “Free Pussy Riot” hung from his float.
The Gay Pride parade is considered by many to be an opportunity for the general public and visitors to both show solidarity with the gay community and come together in celebration and support of human rights for all.
The eloquent and defiant closing statement from band member Yekaterina Samutsevich in the Pussy Riot trial explains the meaning (which Americans might not have understood) behind the punk band’s acts of art. Via chtodelat, translated:
I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we now expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. Now the whole world sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial.
During the closing statement, the defendant is expected to repent or express regret for her deeds, or to enumerate attenuating circumstances. In my case, as in the case of my colleagues in the group, this is completely unnecessary.
The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
