http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_pussy_riot_helps_putin_20120820/
How Pussy Riot Helps Putin
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edia=&description=How Pussy Riot Helps Putin%20-%20Ivo
Mijnssen%20%40Truthdig>
By Ivo Mijnssen <http://www.truthdig.com/>
Truthdig: Aug 20, 2012
<http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/AP708693014374-320.jpg
>
AP/Alex Katz
A protester is arrested during a demonstration in front of the Russian
Consulate in New York in support of punk band Pussy Riot. Russia's
persecution of Pussy Riot has prompted public demonstrations around the
globe.
Three members of the feminist band Pussy Riot were sentenced Aug. 17 to two
years in a Russian penal colony because they performed a "punk prayer" in a
Moscow church. The trial in Judge Marina Syrova's courtroom and the
draconian punishment of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and
Yekaterina Samutsevich have drawn widespread domestic and international
criticism. There were demonstrations in favor of Pussy Riot all around the
world. Dozens of musicians and artists, among them Madonna and Paul
McCartney, called for the young women's release-two of the convicted are
mothers of small children. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul termed
the sentence "disproportionate to the crime." High Representative of the EU
for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton called the independence of Russia's
courts into doubt, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to
question the country's commitment to "fundamental rights and freedoms."
Some of the reactions domestically were also negative. Hundreds of people
demonstrated against the verdict in front of the court, and about 100 of
them were arrested. Former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin stated that the
ruling undermined citizens' trust in Russia's justice system even further,
and Samutsevich's father opined that Russia was headed in the direction of
theocracies like "Iran and Saudi Arabia, where one can be stoned on
religious grounds." The Russian Orthodox Church maintained that the women
had committed blasphemy, but called upon the state to "show mercy for the
convicted within the framework of the law in the hopes that they will
refrain from repeating their sacrilegious acts." A spokesman for Vladimir
Putin said that the Kremlin accepted the verdict and that the president had
no means of intervening in the judicial process.
However, politics stood at the center of the Pussy Riot case throughout the
trial. The matter began when five members of the punk collective rushed the
Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Feb. 21 in order to protest against
Putin's re-election and the support of him by the patriarch of the Russian
Orthodox Church. Even though they were quickly arrested, the group managed
to produce a video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bPH7rdeWSE> in which it
conducted a punk prayer asking the Virgin Mary to "put Putin away." In the
song, Pussy Riot criticizes the Orthodox Church's discrimination of women
and its close connection with politics, calling Putin the church's "chief
saint." The chorus
<http://freepussyriot.org/content/lyrics-songs-pussy-riot> states, "shit,
shit, the Lord's shit!"
In her ruling, Syrova singled out the last line as blasphemous and judged
Pussy Riot's act as "incitement to religious hatred." Russian law does not
punish blasphemy; instead, the three women were convicted of "hooliganism,"
a catchall charge that is used to chastise a variety of people including
rowdy football fans and neo-Nazis committing racist attacks. It carries a
maximum sentence of seven years in prison. Seen from this perspective, the
verdict is relatively mild, as many observers had feared at the beginning of
the trial that the prosecution would push for the maximum penalty. However,
during his stay at the London Olympics and in the face of mounting
international criticism, Putin called for clemency. A few days later, the
prosecutor asked for a punishment of three years. The final sentence was
slightly lighter.
Syrova, who was also involved in the second trial of jailed plutocrat
Mikhail Khodorkovsky and has-according to the Internet platform
Openspace.ru-issued only one acquittal in 179 cases, made it very clear that
others should consider the prison term for Pussy Riot as a warning. It is no
secret that this warning also applies to the opposition at large: The
government is unwilling to allow for a repetition of last winter's mass
<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/russia_expects_more_from_putin_20120314
/> protests. Shortly before its summer break, the Duma passed a series of
legal measures for this purpose. They include imposing hefty fines on
participants of unsanctioned meetings and requiring nongovernmental
organizations receiving funds from abroad to register as "foreign agents."
Moreover, charges were brought against several opposition figures. Blogger
and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny has been accused of embezzlement
and faces a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison. Most recently, chess
champion and political activist Garry Kasparov was arrested, and apparently
beaten, during a protest against the Pussy Riot verdict. He now faces
charges of having bitten a policeman, which carry a prison sentence of up to
five years.
In all these cases, the authorities have taken great care to deny any
political motivations. Instead, they stressed legal and moral concerns.
Pussy Riot's defense argued that the punk prayer had been a political
protest against Putin. The three defendants also apologized for offending
believers with their actions. Samutsevich said the group chose the main
Orthodox cathedral in Moscow because it had become a "flashy setting for the
politics of the security services, which are the main source of power" in
Russia. The cathedral, which was destroyed under Josef Stalin and rebuilt
under Boris Yeltsin, is indeed the central symbol for the unity of state and
church in Russia. Samutsevich does not believe that the band members would
have been tried if they had not spoken out against Putin: "It seems to me
that if we had sung 'Mother of God, protect Putin' or 'Mother of God, keep
the feminists away,' we would not be sitting here," she said.
Syrova, however, dismissed all political arguments as false pretense.
Instead, she sided with the prosecution (and state media) in portraying the
three defendants as mentally unstable and anti-social. Nonetheless, the
court's experts maintained that in spite of "personality disorders," they
were sane and could thus be held accountable
<http://rapsinews.com/publications/20120802/264059062.html> for their
actions.
To many Russians, therefore, Pussy Riot appears as an irreverent and
possibly extremist organization. Rodrigo von Horn, a German specialist on
Russia who observed the trial closely, told Truthdig that the prosecution
repeatedly insisted on the "psychological damage" Pussy Riot's actions
inflicted with its punk prayer: "Implicitly, this also emphasized the
church's role as the ideological foundation of the Russian state's
stability," he said. In this context, a seemingly minor infraction suddenly
becomes a threat to the entire political system. Two lawyers who represented
a cathedral security guard, one of the prosecution's many "injured parties,"
made it clear that they considered the three defendants to be part of a
larger conspiracy against Orthodoxy and the Russian state. One of them even
drew an explicit connection
<http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/putins-religious-war
-against-pussy-riot.html#ixzz23uqiKQzu> between the attacks against the
Twin Towers in New York and Pussy Riot: "In the first instance it was a
satanic group, and in the second it was the global government. But at the
highest level both are connected-by Satan," the lawyer said.
These kinds of bizarre conspiracy theories do little to lend legitimacy to
the verdict. They do, however, help to explain the severity of the
punishment and the treatment of the defendants during the trial. The defense
did not receive all necessary materials in time, and the judge rejected most
of its witnesses during the trial. The defendants complained of sleep
deprivation and humiliation. They were forced to sit in a cage throughout
the trial, guarded by a fierce Rottweiler and elite soldiers. All of this
underlined the impression that these young women were highly dangerous
enemies of the state. Not surprisingly, Russian officials-and some
non-mainstream commentators like Mike Whitney in CounterPunch-responded to
criticism of the trial by quoting the American treatment of enemy combatants
and alleged state-secrets leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning. It remains unclear,
however, how an American violation of constitutional rights justifies
judicial arbitrariness in Russia (see Chris Randolph's rebuttal
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/09/in-defense-of-pussy-riot-and-the-rus
sian-punk-movement/> in CounterPunch).
The Pussy Riot case has become an international PR disaster for the Russian
government. Domestically, however, it may contribute to rallying support for
Putin's government. To the conservative majority of Russians, estimated at
about 60 percent, the trial has shown that the country's authorities
strengthen Russia's ideological and religious foundations. A recent poll
<http://kommersant.ru/doc/2002817> of Russians by the Levada-Center showed
that 44 percent consider the trial to have been fair and objective, and an
additional 36 percent believe that the punishment corresponds to Pussy
Riot's guilt. Moreover, 41 percent considered the punk prayer to be an
offense against the Orthodox community, and only one-quarter saw political
reasons behind the trial. In this sense, the case will probably assist the
Kremlin in consolidating its conservative base. However, frustration only
deepens among the growing urban and cosmopolitan sectors of Russian society,
whose calls for reform fall on deaf ears. Most likely, this will motivate
even more young and talented Russians to leave their country rather than
hope for change at home.
_____
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