CHERNOV’S CHOICE

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: December 26, 2012 (Issue # 1741)

Feminist punk group Pussy Riot has been mentioned in many international reviews of 2012, with The Guardian describing it as “the only band that mattered in 2012” and Le Figaro ranking group member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova as the “Woman of the Year.”

Pussy Riot made punk rock relevant and influential again and become the only Russian group that became a household name globally.

They have also epitomized what the past year was in Russia — from anger over the electoral fraud and massive rallies in Dec. 2011, hopes for change and the reaction and crackdown on protest that followed in the wake of the protest rallies.

Sadly, they have also become the first post-Soviet Russian band to be imprisoned for their work.

While the activists are being praised in the international media and winning awards such as the LennonOno Grant for Peace, Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina are in prison colonies far from Moscow, where they are held under harsh conditions, while Alyokhina was recently reported to have been punished by the colony administration for “oversleeping.”

An obedient Moscow court qualified their performance as “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and jailed them for two years in August, although the actual sentence for third activist Yekaterina Samutsevich was later changed to a suspended sentence.

Even the most naïve, who believed that Pussy Riot did offend some religious people, cannot hold that position now. Late last month, a Moscow court banned all but one of the group’s videos — not only the video for “Holy Mother of God, Drive Putin Away” which criticized the head of the Russian Orthodox Church for backing Putin and became the pretext for arresting and imprisoning the activists.

These include the group’s unsanctioned political performances at metro stations as well as on bus roofs and trolleybuses (“Clear Up the Pavement”) and on Red Square (“Putin Has Pissed Himself”).

The court ruling was based on an expert report prepared by the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies, ill-famed for reaching exactly the kind of conclusions that the investigators require. The experts said that the videos contain a “hidden call for rebellion and disobedience to the authorities.” The videos are most likely to be blocked in Russia after the appeal hearing, whose date will be announced Saturday.

Previously, the Kremlin — and the court — insisted that the trial was not politically motivated, though few were deceived.

Amnesty International has named the imprisoned activists “prisoners of conscience,” while dozens of rock and pop artists, including Sting, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Bjork and Patti Smith haven spoken out or performed in their support.

– By Sergey Chernov