{"id":7560,"date":"2012-07-23T03:15:21","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T03:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7560"},"modified":"2012-07-23T03:15:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T03:15:21","slug":"free-the-pussy-rioters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/free-the-pussy-rioters\/","title":{"rendered":"Free the Pussy Rioters!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Via<\/a> the New York Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n

MOSCOW \u2014 When four young women in balaclavas performed a crude anti-Putin song on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February, it seemed like just one more episode in a season of audacious, absurdist and occasionally offensive protest.<\/p>\n

Instead, the case of the young punk rockers, whose group is called Pussy Riot, is becoming a bellwether event in the Russian capital, signaling an end to the chilly tolerance the Kremlin displayed in response to the winter\u2019s large demonstrations.
\nThe three women arrested after the performance have been held in custody for more than four months, a term that was extended on Friday by six months, through next January. They could be sent to prison for seven years.<\/p>\n

Preliminary hearings in the case offered some of the most striking courtroom images since the trial of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, which took place in the same building. While that case tested Russians\u2019 feelings toward a billionaire businessman, this one picks as its targets slender young women with hooded sweatshirts and Twitter accounts \u2014 avatars of the protest movement itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stupid form of protest, but sledgehammers and nuts come to mind.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s this:<\/p>\n

The criminal prosecution of the three women \u2014 Maria Alyokhina, 24; Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 \u2014 rests on the notion that their performance incited religious hatred. That argument is supported by Orthodox activists who say the women are Satanists. Ten witnesses have said they suffered \u201cmoral damage\u201d as a result and are considered victims in the court proceeding, as is standard in Russia. One, a cathedral security guard, \u201chad trouble sleeping after the crime in the cathedral,\u201d said his lawyer, Mikhail Kuznetsov, in an interview with the newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti.<\/p>\n

The band, Mr. Kuznetsov said, \u201cis only a tiny visible tip of the iceberg of extremists who are trying to destroy the thousand-year-old basis of the Russian Orthodox Church, provoking a schism, and using lies to lead the flock not to God but to Satan.\u201d
\n\u2026A poll released on Friday by the independent Levada Center found that a substantial proportion of Muscovites, 37 percent, took a positive view of the prosecution, and 50 percent had a negative view.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it began to turn into this fantastic biblical story, social attitudes toward the girls changed radically,\u201d said Marat Guelman, a former political consultant and gallery owner whose projects have been denounced by religious activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the population now are not so much talking about what Pussy Riot did as much as their fear that these people who want to introduce some kind of Orthodox Taliban to Russia, that they will take power,\u201d Mr. Guelman said. \u201cSo now I think the authorities are making a big mistake, taking revenge in this way. Society will not support this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether he is right will become clear only gradually, as state-controlled television reports on the prosecution of the three women, two of them mothers of small children. So far, the case has aroused intense interest only on the extremes of the political spectrum, a fact reflected on Friday outside the courthouse, where protesters wearing white ribbons tried to shout down Orthodox activists carrying Bibles\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via the New York Times: MOSCOW \u2014 When four young women in balaclavas performed a crude anti-Putin song on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February, it seemed like just one more episode in a season … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[746],"tags":[946,559,560,781],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7560"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7564,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions\/7564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}