Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Pussy Riot Update - January 2013

On January 16, Masha Alekhina of the Russian performance art collective Pussy Riot will get a hearing in the prison where she's being held over whether to postpone her prison sentence on the grounds of her being a single mother of a small child. If ruled in her favor her sentence will be postponed until her son turns 14.  While this is only a temporary especially solution (especially since Pussy Riot should've never faced charges of hooliganism to begin with over their infamous church performance),  it would allow Masha to be reunited with her child.

It's hard to say what will happen in the hours ahead.  While I want to be hopeful, the current situation in Russia seems more about punishing Putin's perceived allies regardless of the costs in the international picture.  In a trail where the three members of Pussy Riot weren't allowed to truly defend themselves and focused more on hurt feelings of religious believers rather than on actual issues (or the fact that similar acts i the past were punished with a fine), Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church took a situation that would've been a footnote and made the three women political pirosners and martyrs in the process.  In a state that was allegedly secular, this shift in power towards a potential theocracy is troubling indeed.

Between tomorrow's hearing and the hearing over allowing Yekaterina Samutsevich (who was released conditionally) to be included as an interested party over the ruling that Pussy Riot's videos are extremist (a decision made after the verdict was already in) on the 24th of this month, one wonders what turn the saga of Pussy Riot will take next. Whatever happens we have to keep the pressure on to make sure the imprisoned members of Pussy Riot are released unconditionally and that Katerina gets an unconditional release as well. 

Only time will tell but it will not go away quietly.

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