FT-CI

Russia

A shameful sentence against the Pussy Riot feminist activists in Russia

19/08/2012

By Celeste Murillo

On February 21, this year, the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot carried out an action repudiating the Orthodox Church and recently re-elected President Vladimir Putin. The feminist activists entered Moscow’s main cathedral, and, in a completely peaceful action, they conducted a “punk prayer” where they asked the Virgin Mary to protect Russia from Putin. The feminist activists are 3 women: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevitch, 30.

This action was carried out after the presidential elections in which Putin was declared the winner, despite charges of fraud and growing repudiation among the population, especially among young people. The government had already been toughening up repressive measures and reducing democratic freedoms, with the aim of obstructing the expression of groups opposing the regime.

The charge against the feminist activists seeks to teach a lesson, not only against the groups that are opposed to the regime, but against those who dare to question the institution of the Russian Orthodox Church, that has offered the regime and Putin enormous support.

The aim of the protest action was to point out the enormous weight that the religious institution has in the regime. Many people are also pointing at the relationship of the head of the Church, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev, called “Patriarch Kirill,” according to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, with President Putin, whom Kirill calls a “miracle from God.”

Moreover, Gundyayev has been criticized several times because of his ostentatious lifestyle, something the Church itself tried to conceal when they photographed him using a $40,000 watch. The Church has been backing Putin with the aim of having him defend its interests. During his term of office, Putin has returned to the Orthodox Church a large part of the properties that had been expropriated from it by the October 1917 Revolution. And, if there were any doubt about the artificial nature of the separation between Church and State, Gundyayev himself stated in an interview in Poland that the Church and the State in Russia are separated, but they pursue the same moral interests. On August 17, the sentence against the 3 women for “vandalism motivated by religious hatred,” became known, with 2 years in prison for having sung a song inside a church and, according to the female judge, carrying out “diabolical dances.” To this, the public prosecutors added that the activists “hurt the feelings of the Russian believers.”

It is clear that the harsh sentence against the activists has nothing to do with an alleged religious insult or a lack of respect for the “faith of the people,” as the public prosecutors and the government tried to justify. It is an attempt to discipline all the people and organizations that question the regime and its institutions. That is what the regime was seeking in trying the activists locked up in glass cages and handcuffed, as if they were dangerous criminals.

This reactionary measure seeks to strengthen, with a heavy hand, the disputed legitimacy of the regime, that, with this, only intensifies its policy of reducing democratic freedoms. In this case, to safeguard a reactionary institution like the Church, but with the prospect of armor-plating its regime against protests that, although they are still intermittent and diverse, do not appear to be diminishing.

Outside the court, hundreds of activists broke out in anger, when they learned of the sentence, and the demonstration ended with several arrests of activists and important figures who had come to the trial in solidarity with Pussy Riot.

The repudiation of the imprisonment had already gone around the whole world, adding the support of political and human rights organizations, and important figures from the world of music, who made formal requests that the young women be released.

The same day that they passed sentence on Pussy Riot, the Supreme Court decision to reject the appeal that a lawyer defending the rights of the LGTB community of Russia had presented, against the previous sentence of a Moscow court, that prohibited the holding of the Gay Pride march in the city for the next 100 years, became known. The Russian legal system confirmed the city’s ruling and, in that way, led a new assault against those who are demanding greater freedom of expression and demonstration.

The fight for the release of the Pussy Riot singers has been taken in hand by many organizations, not only of feminists, because the repudiation of the toughening up of Putin’s regime and its repressive offensive against the groups that are opposed to his government, is expressed in the struggle for their release.

It is clear that all the statements of indignation from Obama and the European Union are only a sign of shameless cynicism. They themselves limit the democratic freedoms of the population, by supporting the reactionary “War on Terror” laws in the United States, and, in Europe, by blatantly persecuting the millions of female and male immigrants that live and work in their countries. No statement nor denunciation in the international organizations will weaken Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime and its reactionary institutions; working women and men will only do that with their mobilization of women and young people.

Translated by Craig Abernethy

Related articles

No hay comentarios a esta nota

Newspaper

  • PTS (Argentina)

  • Actualidad Nacional

    MTS (México)

  • EDITORIAL

    LTS (Venezuela)

  • DOSSIER : Leur démocratie et la nôtre

    CCR NPA (Francia)

  • ContraCorriente Nro42 Suplemento Especial

    Clase contra Clase (Estado Español)

  • Movimento Operário

    MRT (Brasil)

  • LOR-CI (Bolivia) Bolivia Liga Obrera Revolucionaria - Cuarta Internacional Palabra Obrera Abril-Mayo Año 2014 

Ante la entrega de nuestros sindicatos al gobierno

1° de Mayo

Reagrupar y defender la independencia política de los trabajadores Abril-Mayo de 2014 Por derecha y por izquierda

La proimperialista Ley Minera del MAS en la picota

    LOR-CI (Bolivia)

  • PTR (Chile) chile Partido de Trabajadores Revolucionarios Clase contra Clase 

En las recientes elecciones presidenciales, Bachelet alcanzó el 47% de los votos, y Matthei el 25%: deberán pasar a segunda vuelta. La participación electoral fue de solo el 50%. La votación de Bachelet, representa apenas el 22% del total de votantes. 

¿Pero se podrá avanzar en las reformas (cosméticas) anunciadas en su programa? Y en caso de poder hacerlo, ¿serán tales como se esperan en “la calle”? Editorial El Gobierno, el Parlamento y la calle

    PTR (Chile)

  • RIO (Alemania) RIO (Alemania) Revolutionäre Internationalistische Organisation Klasse gegen Klasse 

Nieder mit der EU des Kapitals!

Die Europäische Union präsentiert sich als Vereinigung Europas. Doch diese imperialistische Allianz hilft dem deutschen Kapital, andere Teile Europas und der Welt zu unterwerfen. MarxistInnen kämpfen für die Vereinigten Sozialistischen Staaten von Europa! 

Widerstand im Spanischen Staat 

Am 15. Mai 2011 begannen Jugendliche im Spanischen Staat, öffentliche Plätze zu besetzen. Drei Jahre später, am 22. März 2014, demonstrierten Hunderttausende in Madrid. Was hat sich in diesen drei Jahren verändert? Editorial Nieder mit der EU des Kapitals!

    RIO (Alemania)

  • Liga de la Revolución Socialista (LRS - Costa Rica) Costa Rica LRS En Clave Revolucionaria Noviembre Año 2013 N° 25 

Los cuatro años de gobierno de Laura Chinchilla han estado marcados por la retórica “nacionalista” en relación a Nicaragua: en la primera parte de su mandato prácticamente todo su “plan de gobierno” se centró en la “defensa” de la llamada Isla Calero, para posteriormente, en la etapa final de su administración, centrar su discurso en la “defensa” del conjunto de la provincia de Guanacaste que reclama el gobierno de Daniel Ortega como propia. Solo los abundantes escándalos de corrupción, relacionados con la Autopista San José-Caldera, los casos de ministros que no pagaban impuestos, así como el robo a mansalva durante los trabajos de construcción de la Trocha Fronteriza 1856 le pusieron límite a la retórica del equipo de gobierno, que claramente apostó a rivalizar con el vecino país del norte para encubrir sus negocios al amparo del Estado. martes, 19 de noviembre de 2013 Chovinismo y militarismo en Costa Rica bajo el paraguas del conflicto fronterizo con Nicaragua

    Liga de la Revolución Socialista (LRS - Costa Rica)

  • Grupo de la FT-CI (Uruguay) Uruguay Grupo de la FT-CI Estrategia Revolucionaria 

El año que termina estuvo signado por la mayor conflictividad laboral en más de 15 años. Si bien finalmente la mayoría de los grupos en la negociación salarial parecen llegar a un acuerdo (aún falta cerrar metalúrgicos y otros menos importantes), los mismos son un buen final para el gobierno, ya que, gracias a sus maniobras (y las de la burocracia sindical) pudieron encausar la discusión dentro de los marcos del tope salarial estipulado por el Poder Ejecutivo, utilizando la movilización controlada en los marcos salariales como factor de presión ante las patronales más duras que pujaban por el “0%” de aumento. Entre la lucha de clases, la represión, y las discusiones de los de arriba Construyamos una alternativa revolucionaria para los trabajadores y la juventud

    Grupo de la FT-CI (Uruguay)