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Imprisoned Pussy Riot member declares hunger strike

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:20:00 +0000

Maria Alekhina, one of the Russian punk activist group currently in jail for staging an anti-Putin performance in an Orthodox church last year, has declared a hunger strike in protest of being denied to attend her parole hearing.

Alekhina watched the trial via a video link from prison in Berezniki, a small city in the Urals. At the end of the proceedings on Wednesday, she declared a hunger strike, ordering her defense lawyers "not to take part in this court trial" because the court was violating her rights. "Let the troika sitting here – the judge, the prosecutor and the colony employee – decide my fate," she said.

The parole hearing has been postponed until Thursday.

Alyokhina is expected to be released next March, along with fellow Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was denied parole last month.

Sentencing for the third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was suspended in October.

Russia lost $49 billion to “Kremlin capitalism”

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:22:00 +0000

The head of Russia's central bank, Sergei Ignatyev, on Wednesday said Russia lost nearly $50 billion of its national income last year to "one well-organized group of people" operating illegally, reported Al Jazeera, citing Russian press.

Ignatyev declined to name the believed perpetrators, but his comments to Russia's Vedomosti newspaper come ahead of a promised bank study on the issue.

The findings were to be published on Wednesday on bank's website, here, but which do not appear to have been issued publicly as of this writing.

The news gives critics of "Kremlin capitalism," a reference to political and financial corruption believed tolerated or directly supported by the government, a boost. For its part, the Kremlin said the reported losses are "highly exaggerated," according to Reuters.

Russian politician: It was no meteor, it was U.S. weapons

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:35:00 +0000

While the crash of a meteor in Russia has left American Congress members concerned enough to call a House Science committee hearing on asteroids, some in Russia are keeping concerns terrestrial.

According to the Washington Post, citing Moscow-sponsored outlet Voice of Russia, controversial parliament member Vladimir Zhirinovsky "has blamed Americans for today’s meteorite scare." Reportedly, Zhirinovsky told reporters, "Those were not meteorites; it was Americans testing their new weapons.”

WaPo notes that "Zhirinovsky is known for his nationalist, anti-Western, sometimes outlandish rhetoric" and has been called a “political clown" by German newspaper Der Spiegel.

Although outlandish and not widely shared in the Kremlin, Zhirinovsky's meteor comments come at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and Russia. The Economist noted Friday that "to Kremlin ideologists, the very concept of Russia’s sovereignty depends on being free of America’s influence." The Economist notes a series of antagonist measures Russia and America recently introduced against the other:

Moscow court frees 1 of 3 Pussy Riot members

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:20:00 +0000

MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow appeals court on Wednesday unexpectedly freed one of the jailed Pussy Riot members, but upheld the two-year prison sentence for the two others jailed for an irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin.

All three women were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. They argued in court on Wednesday that their impromptu performance inside Moscow's main cathedral in February was political in nature and not an attack on religion.

The Moscow City Court ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich's sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of the cathedral by guards before she could remove her guitar from its case and take part in the performance.

"The punishment for an incomplete crime is much lighter than for a completed one," said Samutsevich's lawyer, Irina Khrunova. "She did not participate in the actions the court found constituted hooliganism."

Dressed in neon-colored miniskirts and tights, with homemade balaclavas on their heads, the women performed a "punk prayer" asking Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin as he headed into a March election that would hand him a third term.

Pussy Riot fest held in Russia despite pressure

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:45:00 +0000

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A music festival to support jailed members of the Russian band Pussy Riot went forward despite official pressure to cancel it, organizers said Monday.

Olga Kurnosova said city officials had tried to force her to stop Sunday's show in St. Petersburg — President Vladimir Putin's hometown — and firefighters had threatened to close down the Glavklub hall, claiming safety violations ahead of the concert.

About 1,000 people attended the "Free Pussy Riot Fest" headlined by the Russian rock protest bands DDT and Televizor, whose songs have long riled Soviet authorities and Putin's Kremlin.

Last month three members of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in jail for a "punk prayer" against Putin in Russia's largest cathedral in a trial that provoked an international outcry.

On Sunday, DDT frontman Yuri Shevchuk compared the spiraling Kremlin crackdown on political protests to Soviet-era repression of dissidents.

"In 1992, we participated in a festival against political repression," he told the audience. "Twenty years have passed, but it seems almost nothing has changed."

Pussy Riot denied bail

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:20:00 +0000

The following originally appeared on Heather Michon's Open Salon Blog.

A Russian court yesterday ruled that three members of the feminist punk rock collective known as Pussy Riot will remain in jail, a crushing end to a day of rumors, reportedly out of the Kremlin, that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich would be released on bail.

The three activists were arrested in March after allegedly staging a flash mob-style protest at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Feb. 21. Dressed in the group's signature scanty clothing and brightly colored balaclavas, Russian authorities say they and another performer walked up to the altar and launched into an impromptu performance of their anti-Putin, anti-church "punk prayer."

Parishioners and church officials hustled the women off of the altar in less than five minutes. A few days later, Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich were charged with "hooliganism." If convicted, they face up to seven years in prison.