Pussy Riot: Views from Russia

The trial that has led to the sentencing of three members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot to two years imprisonment has generated a great deal of media interest around the globe. Their conviction for “hooliganism” and “religious hatred” in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour has been greeted with widespread indignation, with well-known celebrities such as Madonna, Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono expressing their support for the group members, but how has the trial and subsequent sentence been perceived in Russia? What is the narrative being spun by the mainstream Russian media?

Pussy Riot claim that their stunt – their “punk prayer” to the Virgin Mary for Putin to leave office – was politically motivated, but quite what their manifesto is, other than for Putin to go, is not known. Prior to their impromptu cathedral performance, the group was unheard of outside of Russia and not that well known in their home country. Irrespective of any political motivation, evidently this episode has created one thing: massive publicity. How many Russian punk bands had you heard of before this trial? In fact, how many Russian bands had you heard of?

One of Russia’s most popular papers – Izvestia – draws attention to the fact that two of the women sentenced today have young children which offers them the hope of having their sentences reduced significantly as has happened on a number of occasions in the past for women in a similar situation. However, there remain ten days during which an appeal can be made, and only then, if unsuccessful, will the sentence be carried out. Even if they are unlucky, the paper says that the may be able to apply for early release in spring 2013. Moreover, if all else fails it is likely that an appeal will be made to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that the sentences violate Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees “freedom of expression”.

The editor of the more critical Novaya Gazeta made the Pussy Riot case the main story, stating: “The sentence demonstrated that our state and Church have finally merged in ecstasy. To criticise the Church means an attack upon the state, and the reverse. This bears no relation whatsoever to the true intimate and secret religious sensibility.”

The government-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta unsurprisingly took a critical stance towards the foreign media, singling out The Guardian and The Globe and Mail in particular, not being impressed by The Guardian’s comparison of Pussy Riot with Jesus Christ. Moreover, noting that Amnesty International had also joined the foreign press in condemnation of Russia’s handling of the trial the reporter asked “Where does such unity suddenly spring from?” She, Galina Vasina, provided this by why of an answer: they all wanted to hinder the emergence of “a strong Russia”.

Russian journalist Alexander Nekrassov spoke to Jon Snow in this evening’s edition of Channel 4 News, claiming that Pussy Riot had offended the deep religious sensibilities of many Russian people and therefore had deserved punishment of some sort. It is true that ‘singing’ their punk prayer in the cathedral was discordant, disruptive and inappropriate, but for it to have been adjudged to have been a criminal matter, potentially carrying a sentence of up to seven years, strikes me as bizarre as well as innately unjust. Surely, something along the lines of a banning order prohibiting the members of the group involved from entering certain ecclesiastical buildings for a particular length of time would have been more appropriate? Already, the three women have spent five months in custody, which is a long time for a ‘misjudged’ publicity stunt. Even Putin claimed that he did not wish the women in question to receive a harsh sentence, which begs the question: does Putin consider two years incarceration to be a harsh sentence?

As for the group indulging in “religious hatred”, that charge is an obvious absurdity. In what way can their action be said to have incited hatred of Orthodox Christians or Christianity?

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was originally built to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon after his burning of Moscow in 1812. In the early 1930s, the Communists dynamited the building, raising it to the ground with the original intention of building a Palace of the Soviets topped by a giant statue of Lenin, but constant waterlogging caused a change of plan, and for decades it was instead the site of the world’s largest open air swimming pool. In 1990 permission was granted to rebuild the Cathedral, so today a replica of the original stands on the site. It is therefore a building imbued with considerable national symbolism, hence, presumably, its choice as the location for Pussy Riot's noisy intervention.

The cause of Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samusevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been championed across the western world, but like any event in Russia that can be turned to an anti-national end, globalists, particularly those of a US Neocon bent, will be keen to use this case not only as a means of propagandising against the Putin clique, but against the Russian state's general independent stance in international affairs. Irrespective of the composition of its leadership at any one time, the Russian Federation serves as a steadfast geopolitical opponent of a globalised unipolar world, which is why Neocons such as Mitt Romney possess such hostility towards the country. So, if you should hear Romney declaring his support for Pussy Riot and human rights in Russia, you need to be aware that for him arguments about such freedoms are ancillary to assisting the promotion of globalism and the hobbling of one of its strongest opponents.

Today, Pussy Riot have released what they term a “Single for the Sentence” entitled “Putin lights the bonfires of Revolution” which can be heard below. It, thankfully, is not as discordantly grating as their ecclesiastically themed effort. There is though as you might expect, a considerable amount of screeching.