Even by Russian standards, the trial has been roundly mocked as a farce, complete with barking dogs, a judge who feigned deafness when the defense objected, and denunciations of feminism as a “mortal sin" - New York Times
In a draconian act of cultural suppression the Russian state, keeping faith with a long standing Kremlin tradition, has sentenced to two years imprisonment three members of the punk rock band, Pussy Riot. Tsar Putin, like so many of the country’s autocrats that preceded him, whether in the Communist Party or outside of it, is not slow to take umbrage at dissent and is fond of cracking the whip in the hope of intimidating it into abeyance. Responding to the authoritarian sentiment of the country’s president its opposition leader claimed the women were jailed ‘because it is Putin's personal revenge. This verdict was written by Vladimir Putin.’
The charge for which the women were locked up is ‘hooliganism’, a typical criminal term that serves to denude their actions of any political content and thus strengthen the claims of the state to enhanced legitimacy.
In a draconian act of cultural suppression the Russian state, keeping faith with a long standing Kremlin tradition, has sentenced to two years imprisonment three members of the punk rock band, Pussy Riot. Tsar Putin, like so many of the country’s autocrats that preceded him, whether in the Communist Party or outside of it, is not slow to take umbrage at dissent and is fond of cracking the whip in the hope of intimidating it into abeyance. Responding to the authoritarian sentiment of the country’s president its opposition leader claimed the women were jailed ‘because it is Putin's personal revenge. This verdict was written by Vladimir Putin.’
The charge for which the women were locked up is ‘hooliganism’, a typical criminal term that serves to denude their actions of any political content and thus strengthen the claims of the state to enhanced legitimacy.
