By: Kevin Sparrow
Rock music has had an interesting relationship with the law. Twisted Sister fought parental advisory labels in court. Metallica testified against Napster and illegal music downloading. But neither of those bands has gone through what three members of Russian punk collective Pussy Riot are experiencing: they are facing up to seven years in prison for one public performance.
Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested after a February 21 show at the head Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow on charges of hooliganism and religious hatred. The band has been performing in various publicly accessible spaces since October 2011–fashion shows, the roof of a detention center, on top of public transit–to spread their message of political criticism, especially on anti-authoritarianism, the treatment of women, and the rights of LGBTQ people in Russia.
The women have been detained for five months before their hearing and have been reported to be underfed and sleep-deprived. Their lawyers have cited the improper circumstances occurring throughout the trial: the first two prosecutorial witnesses were not at the scene of the alleged crime, the defense was excluded from lines of questioning regarding political motivation and led to only ask question about the Orthodox Church’s practices, and they have had 10 of their witnesses denied while the prosecution has had free reign. And the band themselves, through Tolokonnikova, have cited that the charges against them are baseless. The song they performed at the cathedral was not in regard to Russian Orthodoxy, but was a call for the church not to endorse current president Vladimir Putin’s return to office before the March elections.
Though currently occupied with the Olympic games in London, UK news has far more coverage on this story than the US, even though it directly impacts a core American value of freedom of expression. A letter of support and call to release the women has been signed by mostly UK artists including Corinne Bailey Rae, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand and Kate Nash. Nash has also tied into modern media and has been reposting DIY “Free Pussy Riot” art from activists and fans on Tumblr and kept the conversation going through Twitter with the #freepussyriot hashtag.
The approximately minute-long punk prayer the group performed before being removed from the cathedral, “Holy Mary, Expel Putin,” borrowed from Russian hymn “Bogoroditse devo” written by Rachmaninoff. Reflecting on music culturally, much of the music that has retained longevity in the public sphere are national anthems and hymns (Chicagoans might also include the 7th inning stretch, though I argue that fits with nationalism), mostly because they are used to instill loyalty. In that way, we often conflate the sanctity of religion with how people should be expected to relate to their governments–all of which seems to have come to a head in the case against Pussy Riot. It does not seem to matter whether their action was motivated by politics or anti-religious sentiment; being anti-government is equal to showing hate toward a protected group, so, criminal.
LGBTQ folk in Russia are not a protected group, so hatred espoused against them is still A-OK. The Moscow City Hall put a 100-year ban on Moscow Pride events last October. A May protest against this ruling was blocked by police, and a new law in St. Petersburg that criminalizes “gay propaganda” being provided to youth found its first conviction in activist Nikolai Alexeyev. Former Moscow Mayor Luzhkov described Pride parades as “satanic” during his tenure. No, that’s not hate speech at all.
Given the current parliamentary democracy under which Russia governs, the rights to free speech and assembly are supposedly guaranteed. But with the above examples of the Pride parade efforts and the news that Putin’s parliament is enacting laws that severely restrict protests deemed anti-government and activity by non-Russian NGOs, those are nominal rights at best. Anti-Putin leaders are even being investigated or arrested and charged with crimes from outdated weapons licenses to embezzlement.
These might appear to be growing pains for a country that is only 20 years into a democratic era, but the suppression of political activism is not unique to Russia. It is alive and well here in the US. FBI agents have recently profiled and raided the homes of political activists across the Seattle, Portland and Olympia region following May Day protests in Seattle that incurred vandalism. A search warrant details items that might be considered evidence of criminal activity, including “black clothing,” “anti-government or anarchist literature,” and “computers, cellular phones… and electronic storage media of any form.” So, really anything. Similar occurrences have been noted surrounding the NATO protests in Chicago. This battle against dissent even burrows into the July rioting in Anaheim in which police used excessive force to intimidate protestors who called for an investigation into why an unarmed man was killed by police officers.
This might be a case–and I rarely quote the Bible, so this is serious–of taking the plank out of our own eyes before getting the dust out of our neighbor’s. Or it might be time to address how we can claim true democracies across the world when we institutionalize suspicion and intolerance.
Kevin Sparrow is a Chicago writer who is interested in Queerness is both a favorite subject and pastime. His education in movies-writing has proved that he is adept at powering up computers and elementary keyboard use. Sparrow’s short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in that order in Harrington Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly and LIES/ISLE, as well as on the website Be Yr Own Queero.
