The UK also has no qualms over disproportionate sentencing or criminal sanctions for occupational protest.
Three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years of imprisonment in a penal colony, following a protest-performance in a Russian Orthodox church. Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were all arrested after a video of the performance, which was interrupted by security, was posted online.
The clearly politically-motivated trial has attracted a great deal of international attention, as well as galvanising protest inside Russia. Solidarity protests have been held in front of the court (which saw Gary Kasparov, among others, being arrested), and at Russian embassies. Amnesty international has classified the group as “prisoners of conscience”.
The severity of their sentence for hooliganism aggravated by religious hatred has led to condemnations from a number of countries, including the US, Sweden and Germany. British foreign office minister Alistair Burt joined in, adding “I am deeply concerned by the sentencing of three members of the band Pussy Riot, which can only be considered a disproportionate response to an expression of political belief … Today's verdict calls into question Russia's commitment to protect these fundamental rights and freedoms.”
Britain of course is not above “disproportionate” sentences for political activity. Anti-cuts protester Omar Ibrahim was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for picking up a joke-shop smoke bomb from the pavement during last march's anti-cuts demonstration an tossing it towards Topshop. No-one was harmed, but he was imprisoned for violent disorder.
Protesters committing the exact same “crime” as Pussy Riot – entering a property and protesting, in this case at Fortnum and Mason's – were arrested (after being told be the police that they wouldn't be if they left without a fuss), charged, and in the case of a number of defendants, convicted of aggravated trespass.
More recently, British anarchists returning from the St. Imier congress were detained by anti-terror police on the basis of their politics.
“Disproportion” in sentencing was also a very deliberate policy following last summer's riots.
Two men were jailed for four years for posting pages on facebook encouraging riots. One, Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, posted a page while drunk encouraging rioting, removed it and apologised when he woke up the next morning. No rioting took place. PM David Cameron defended the severity of the sentence.
Similarly, one man in Manchester, Anderson Fernandes, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for walking through the open door of an ice cream shop during the riots and taking one lick of ice cream.
Another North – West case was that of Stephen Carter, who picked up a bag of clothes he found in bushes in Salford. As these had been previously been looted, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
Such sentences are accepted to be enormous by western standards for public order offences.
The hypocrisy becomes even more galling when we consider the ongoing US practice of indefinite detention without trial, and European collusion in the rendition of terror suspects.
In the case of the US, UK, EU and other European countries, such criticism is much more likely motivated by geopolitical concerns than anything else.
Comments
Great post Django.
Great post Django.
Well most of the western
Well most of the western government and celebrity protests have been for there own purposes of course and noteably about the 'disproportionate' nature of the sentences rather than the whole rotten affair involving collusion between the state authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church.
The role of that church in both assisting and encouraging deeply conservative and authoritarian measures (even by the usual capitalist standards) is not new as recent homophobic legislation attests to. In this they are only competing it seems with other fundamentalist protestant sects that have started to get a foothold over there.
'Pussy Riot' may not hate these scum but this experience has certainly reinforced my own hatred for them.
PS: The R.Orthodox Church does have a sprinkling of churches over here in the UK as well.
In today's world anyone who
In today's world anyone who doesn't lick the government's boots is "violent" and "rioting". I was assaulted by police more than once and then told I was acting in a violent manner. Every state is the same, there is no point of asking for justice from the Eton boys who run the UK government any more than there is asking for justice from Obama or Putin. All scum smells alike.
I want to start a Pussy Riot
I want to start a Pussy Riot imitation band
This whole event reminded me
This whole event reminded me of the Lettrist prank in Paris. It was Easter Sunday in the 1950s, they got dressed up as priests and then walked into Notre Dame cathedral just before the Sunday service with the Swiss guard and tv cameras etc. there. Then one of them climbed on to the podium and started giving a sermon declaring the death of God. When they realised it wasn't a real sermon the crowd went to attack them, a Swiss guard managed to cut one of the guys on the face with a weapon and ironically they were only saved by the police as they rushed out of the building. It was a massive scandal, much bigger than this.
Malva wrote: It was a massive
Malva
You should have seen the prank I pulled at a religious conference at my university (now former university). There was this big serious "inter-faith" meeting going on and I arrived pretending to be a serious worshiper of the goddess Athena. I though about it for a while and decided if I ever prayed to any god, it would either be Athena, Hermes, or (George Carlin's favorite) Joe Pesci. I eventually went with Athena.
You would not believe what a great time I had. A lot of the people there eventually realized I was pretending, but they had to take me seriously because otherwise it would make all the other religions look just as stupid. So I pushed on, making up all kinds of ridiculous claims and rituals and talking about this stuff with actual Catholic priests and other people who were there. I will treasure that evening forever. It was the best prank I pulled on religious people to date.
Having said that, I don't think we need to be malicious, disrespectful, or hostile towards the religious. It's enough to just laugh at them a little :)
Yes, it is interesting that
Yes, it is interesting that now religion is going through its final death throws its various organised forms are coming together as an "inter-faith" in order to shore each other up. Ironically, as you imply, it makes it easier to critique the lot of them as a totality.
Meanwhile.... http://www.coun
Meanwhile....
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/08/the-pussy-riot-flap/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32415
:wall:
Malva wrote: Yes, it is
Malva
Do you think that religion is at its final demise? That is quite an optimism there, mate!
Well it is certainly dying in
Well it is certainly dying in its big institutional forms, but as for the idea of God - and I suppose some weaker institutional expressions - I think that will carry on as an archaic, and marginal, form of fetishism until hierarchical social relationships are abolished in general. I mean the Catholic church is not exactly now what it was in the 12th century.
Malva wrote: Well it is
Malva
All right, the Catholic church isn't what it use to be in the 12th century, of course. But look at the bigger picture: The human race is more numerous than ever. The ebbing religious fervour in Europe is one thing: the world is way bigger than Europe. And also, from a Londoner perspective, that from the East London Mosque of Whitechapel, through the Hasidic Clapton/Stamford Hill, to the Pentecostal/Catholic dominated Tottenham I personally can not testify in favour of receding organized religion.
Sure, the white English population experience a steadily declining of the religious institutionalism, but in the mean time I see success of the different Evangelical churches all around. My ex-boss even changed from porn channel to BelieveTV at one point. In my neighbourhood there's a UCKG (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a Pentecostal church, which is in top 10 earner in Brazil!!!!) just in front of the St Ignacius Church. Not so far away there's a synagogue. In my street and the next street there are two small, humble Church of England churches, less active, but still active. Back in Hungary people are going nuts, especially in the last 10 years. East-Europe, as this current case is also shows in Russia, there's a steadily growing influence of the historical churches and from what I saw in Hungary I could tell that in this millennia the evangelical/pentecostal churches are also on the rise, big time. And then I didn't talk about the entire populations of Asia, Africa, or the Americas.
But this deserves an own thread...
Good opinion piece on pussy
Good opinion piece on pussy riot:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/the-wrong-reasons-to-back-pussy-riot.html?_r=3
Malva wrote: Well it is
Malva
This has been true ever since the Reformation (or, as it should be called, the introduction of anarchy into religious matters). The old idea of God has been dying off too. Most people now just vaguely refer to some sort of intangible "universal spirit" as God. It's still naive and ridiculous, but it's no longer so important because (except in the US) very few people treat God as a rational being and include the belief in him/her in making any real life decisions.
ComradeAppleton wrote: ...but
ComradeAppleton
Western Europe isn't the world.
Devrim
ComradeAppleton wrote: Malva
ComradeAppleton
:confused: what on earth are you talking about? the reformation (at least in the UK, I'm less familiar with it elsewhere) was basically a power conflict between the king on the one hand and the papacy on the other. where you get "anarchy" from this I have no idea.
(unless of course you're referring to the links between protestantism and individualism, that is. in which case calling this "anarchy" is, at the very least, inadequate...)
"Most people" in the West, maybe. I suspect the same isn't the case elsewhere, though.
By anarchy I meant the whole
By anarchy I meant the whole initial message of the Reformation movement: that no Church has a monopoly on interpreting the Bible and that no man is more holy than any other. Basically Luther's idea was that every man can be his own Pope. That's as anarchistic as you can possibly get.
Of course in England it was different because all that happened was the King replaced the Pope with himself... but that was going against the spirit of Reformation, not with it.
Similarly in politics, anarchists want is for every man to rule himself and every woman to rule herself. So we want in politics what took place in theology during the Reformation.
ComradeAppleton wrote: By
ComradeAppleton
Sure mate... it was so anarchistic, that it gave the ideological background for the foundation of the modern states. Sure, it was a movement against the authority of the Pope (not just in the case of the English reformation but in general) but only to reinstate God as the only authority over the religious matters and therefore to merge the religious and civil authorities in government. Even if I could accept your anarchists=individualists formula, this gross misrepresentation of history tells volumes how misguided is your "anarchism". Also, you are talking about the puritanism of the protestant movement, but the Reformation included several different and more influential churches.
But I can see where is your fascination with the Lutheran theology coming from: You are a doctrinaire just as the Evangelical Christians are (sola scriptura). But to represent this retarded doctrinaire attitude as the sign of anarchism, that's just beyond me.
Steven. wrote: Good opinion
Steven.
I was really hoping that Pussy Riot would say something that made the fawning liberal commentators choke on their op-eds. FFS one of the main swedish broadsheets illustrated a Pussy Riot story with two young swedish women in balaclavas wearing "liberal youth" t-shirts, no joke :(
On the religion thing,
On the religion thing, Yekaterina Samutsevich, one of the band members remarked
The rest of the statement is quite good.
Comrade soc, You just don't
Comrade soc,
You just don't understand what I'm talking about. You think I am in some way adovcating for or sympathizing with religion, where none of that is true. I am simply saying that rejecting authority of others in religious matters is analogous to rejecting the authority of others in political and moral matters (within these fields these are all types of anarchies, and an anarchist is a person who is free in all of them).
I am not trying to make any deep analysis of Luther or any bullshit like that. Luther was an authoritarian maniac in politics and morality, but he was one of the first anarchists in theology. That is he thought that each human being should be allowed to read and interpret the bible for himself/herself. This is exactly what I am saying needs to take place in the fields of morality and politics, so that anarchism can be reached.
Decent article, raising some
Decent article, raising some valid points but I have to say I was made a little angry from having personal involvement in the event mentioned below.
"Similarly, one man in Manchester, Anderson Fernandes, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for walking through the open door of an ice cream shop during the riots and taking one lick of ice cream."
-OK. Firstly, it wasn't an open door, it was a smashed window. Secondly, he also admitted, and was charged with the handling of stolen goods, though unrelated to the looting of the Patisserie Valerie (the cafe)
This guy was part of a group that chased terrified staff into a downstairs women's toilet and proceeded to try and kick down the door to attack them.
The only reason he was convicted of anything was because he happened to leave a cigarette butt behind, his DNA being on file from a recent offensive weapon and class A drugs possession charge.
Although 18 months may sound extreme to you on the grounds of his charge, to compare it to the Pussy Riot case itself I find disproportionate and offensive.
Oh look, this is the
Oh look, this is the dailymail comments section now.
As for disproportionate sentences look no further than GB as mentioned in the article itself. Fuck, even fascist Arizona mocks us - http://azstarnet.com/news/world/places-where-trivial-acts-carry-harsh-penalties/article_da567f48-ce33-555e-8ff2-365ec6c38a28.html
Myk wrote: Decent article,
Myk
OK, so is the court report here wrong then?:
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1456866_manchester-riots-looter-jailed-for-one-lick-of-a-stolen-coffee-ice-cream
It also says that the handling stolen goods charge was a seperate to the Patesserie Valerie one, so it doesn't change the reality of what he was convicted for, neither does his drug or weapon possession for previous charges (and similarly a member of Pussy Riot was part of a group which torched a police car, if we're discussing previous antics - the point being that there are definitely Russians online (and Brits, for that matter) arguing that this wasn't an act of free speech, it was a publicity stunt designed to cause maximum offence to Orthodox, they're violent extremists, blah blah).
I think the way luther went
I think the way luther went about his debates with zwingli, karstadt and muntzer would demonstrate that his biblicism was only kosher if ones reading of the bible was the same as his. not to mention his pauline reading of the bible promoted support for political authority of the day in constrast to muntzers eschatological anti prince pro peasant reading of the bible.
Django wrote: OK, so is the
Django
Oh no, I agree it doesn't change the reality of what he was convicted for and like I said, it was extreme on the grounds of the conviction. I totally agree that harsh sentences were handed out on purpose to appease the knee-jerk anger of the public in the fashion of a good ol' witch hunt.
My problem with that one case is that he attacked actual people as opposed to just property, and in knowing that, I don't feel him getting 18 months is disproportionate as he can be considered an actual danger to the public.
I generally agree with the article though.
Django wrote: It also says
Django
Don't you think it was a publicity stunt? I can't really conceive of it being anything else. Considering that they have gone from being an obscure Russia pop group to being internationally famous, it is perhaps the greatest rock 'n' roll publicity stunt of all time.
Devrim
Quote: "Considering that they
Yes, and here they sit, in a prison camp for two years... If that is what a PR firm advised me to get my career going, I would fire them :)
No, I think Pussy Riot deserves to be taken a bit more seriously than dismissing it all as a stunt. The explanation of the action that knotwho refers to above makes that quite clear. They should be defended.
I agree with Dev. It was a
I agree with Dev. It was a publicity stunt gone wrong.
rooieravotr
Nice caricature. No one mentioned PR firm except you.
Saying it was a stunt, is not dismissing them. Just seems to be a statement of fact to me. They didn't end up in an orthodox church by accident.
And, in all honesty, the time they spend locked up will probably help their careers when they get out. Obviously we should sympathise with their plight, that goes without saying.
german church sues activists
german church sues activists after an action during a mess at cologne cathedral: http://www.fr-online.de/politik/pussy-riot-proteste-im-koelner-dom-kirche-verklagt-pussy-riot-unterstuetzer,1472596,16950362.html
rooieravotr wrote: No, I
rooieravotr
What Do you mean by "[T)hey should be defended"? In real practical terms how do you advocate defending them.
I think it is quite clear that it was a publicity stunt, and one that was successful beyond their wildest dreams.
Devrim
The article in the CWO
The article in the CWO website regarding the Pussy Riot trial and the situation in Russia seems to present a more sympathetic, if still critical, approach to that posted by their member Android and is a useful read:
http://leftcom.org/en/articles/2012-08-25/no-pussy-footing-with-putin
On a related note, this is
On a related note, this is quite possibly the most ridiculous article about Pussy Riot, by radical feminists who start off by saying that Pussy Riot is a sexist name and end up calling the men in Voina "sexual abus[ing]" "fascists" and "police". In a way which I actually think is totally sexist, as a completely denies the women in Voina any agency whatsoever, portraying them as passive victims when this is quite clearly not the case.
Later on it gets even more ridiculous, claiming that "sexual violence" is "pandemic" in "most" "leftist or anarchist activist groups", and then concludes with the amazing sentence beginning "The weapon of mass destruction against women is the penis". Seriously, I cannot believe people like this still exist:
http://radicalhub.com/2012/08/20/pussy-riot-whose-freedom-whose-riot/
This radio programme is on
This radio programme is on today at 8pm if anyone would like to tune in:
BBC Radio 4: Putin, the Patriarch and Pussy Riot