Pussy Riot in court- Russia on trial

As the trial of three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot enters its second week, the humiliation and degradation continues unabated.

On a daily basis the young women are woken up after around three hours of sleep in their cells, then spend the following three in a cramped prison van which takes them to court.  There they are stripped naked and searched, then re-dressed and locked in a plastic cage as brazenly corrupt proceedings unfold. Complaints that Maria Alyokhina,Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich are being deprived of food have fallen on deaf ears, whilst the judge’s politically charged behaviour has been branded ‘surreal’ by external observers.

The outrageous events, which effectively amount to a grim combination of a show trial and a public torture session, are all the worse considering that the women’s only “crime” was to enter Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in their trademark coloured dresses and balaclavas, then perform a song criticising Vladimir Putin and his clerical lackey Patriarch Kirill.

The actions hardly amount to the charge of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" levelled at Pussy Riot. Their performance did not attack Orthodox Christians nor their beliefs, but rather a dictatorial President and a Patriarch who has consistently exploited his position to garner support for the Putin regime.

The sight of a political performance in their Church may of course have been uncomfortable to some believers (though many are openly supportive of Pussy Riot); however the band has clearly apologised for any offence caused. Furthermore, the seven year sentence that the women now face is grossly disproportionate to any judicial penalty that should be given solely for insulting a particular faith group.

The painfully obvious truth is that this trial is nothing to do with religion and everything to do with Putin’s cronies seeking to bully, harass and silence some of his most popular critics. The consistently brutal response to an opposition movement which refuses to be silenced, has highlighted Putin’s utterly autocratic nature, something that was never in doubt but is today perhaps more visible than ever.

The young women, undergoing physical and mental torture, facing the majority of a decade in prison for singing a song, are just the latest symbol of Russia’s ongoing slide into deeper authoritarianism. Putin may have won an election, but any credibility that comes from doing so rapidly dissolves upon the arrest of those who criticise the result. He has put his government and his country on trial – and been found guilty.

Technorati Tags: Russia,Putin,Pussy Riot,Maria Alyokhina,Nadezhda Tolokonnikova,Yekaterina Samutsevich,trial,Patriarch Kirill,Christ the Saviour,Punk Prayer

Legalising bigotry

In a fresh attack on Russia’s LGBTI community, Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party last week brought a backwards and authoritarian bill before St. Petersburg's city legislature, imposing a penalty of up to $1600 on anyone found guilty of “public actions aimed at propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism among minors" in the city.

Human rights groups warn that the bill, which was unanimously passed on its first of three readings, will give the authorities cover for banning any public LGBTI activities, from Pride marches to campaigns against homophobia.  Meanwhile LGBTI travel services are already advising those visiting St. Petersburg to watch out, lest they inadvertently fall foul of the wide-reaching regulations.  Ominously LGBTI people will now face the same penalties as those ‘promoting’ paedophilia – a clear signal of how the United Russia Party view large sections of Russian society.   

Perhaps even more worrying than the content itself however, is the rhetoric that accompanied the new legislation.  The bill’s sponsor stated that St. Petersburg, birthplace of leading Russian LGBTI group Kryl’ya and home to the International Lesbian and Gay Association’s Russian branch, is facing “a wave popularizing sexual perversion.”  He was quickly joined by colleagues outrageously comparing consensual homosexual sex to child abuse.

Whilst horrific, such bigotry from Russia’s authorities is hardly surprising; for years the LGBTI community has faced a series of official restraints, numerous arrests and appalling state-supported violence; often stirring memories of the Soviet regime, which punished homosexuality with imprisonment and hard labour.

Scapegoating and stirring up populist hatred has also long been a favourite tactic of Putin’s, frequently aimed at ethnic or religious minorities as well as the LGBTI community, in order to detract attention from economic difficulties or political corruption.  With just weeks to go before Russia’s parliamentary elections, it is hardly surprising that such underhanded behaviour is once again coming to the fore. 

That this is continuing, despite previous rulings by the European Court of Human Rights that the Russian authorities were guilty of discrimination and violations of freedom of assembly against gay citizens, is illustrative of their flagrant disregard of any external pressure when it comes to persecuting their own people.

Still, this should not deter governments and groups around the world from joining organisations such as Amnesty International in calling for the latest draconian bill to be halted and scrapped.  Whether in Uganda, Iran, Russia or anywhere else in the world, bigoted legislation targeting innocent people on the basis of their sexuality must always be vocally –and loudly - opposed.

Technorati Tags: Russia,LGBTI,rights,St. Petersburg,gay,community,scapegoat,fine,illegal,United Russia,Putin,discrimination,Moscow Pride,violence,European Court of Human Rights

The shadow of Putin

Two days after a suicde bomber unleashed carnage at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, Russia is holding a day of mourning for its dead. In an attack as cowardly as it was brutal, thirty-five innocent people were killed and over one hundred more were injured. As the nation and the world begin to come to terms with this barbaric atrocity, many questions are emerging: who exactly was responsible? did the security services have advance warning? was there more that could that could have been done to save lives?

The biggest uncertainty though, is surely how the powers-that-be in the Kremlin will respond. Within hours of the blast, the finger of blame pointed towards to the North Caucuses – the origin of numerous attacks on Russian cities over the past decades. Consequently, fears of enhanced authoritarianism and ethnic persecution are rising once again.

Shortly after coming to power in 2008 Russian President Demitry Medvedev made brave promises to fight corruption and poverty – two of the main reasons why so many young men and women in the Caucuses have turned to militant Islam and expressed their anger at the Russian state through violent means. However, such a positive and progressive focus on the root causes of insurgency was quickly disregarded (if of course, it ever really existed at all). By the time an Islamist Chechen group bombed the Moscow metro last year Medvedev had fallen firmly back into the familiarly destructive mind-set of meeting violence with violence- ominously declaring:

"We have ripped the heads off the most infamous bandits but it appears that this was not enough. We will track them all down in due time and will punish them all, just as we did the previous ones."

This provocative and dangerous stance was doubtlessly shaped, at least in part, by his autocratic Prime Minister and mentor Vladimir Putin – the man who most commentators assert has, in reality, held power over Medvedev’s administration since stepping down as president in line with constitutional term limits. Putin has, after all, spent years making political capital off attacks from the Caucuses, beginning with a series of bombings in Moscow during the Autumn of 1999, which he used justification to instigate war with Chechnya. This dramatically boosted his popularity as Prime Minister whilst undermining then President Boris Yeltsin. Putin took the Presidential office shortly afterwards.

Over subsequent years an array of evidence emerged suggesting that Putin’s security services had themselves played a part in the bombings: a ‘false flag’ operation to put their man in the top-job. When this theory was presented by dissidents Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky in Blowing up Russia the book was banned, copies were destroyed in Hitleresque style and Litvinenko was audaciously murdered in a London restaurant.

In the interim Putin exploited further attacks by militants to consolidate his authoritarian hold on Russia. The Moscow Theatre siege in 2002 led to permanent suppression of independent television stations, crippling an already restricted media and plummeting Russia down the press freedom index. Two years later the murder of children in a Beslan school was shamelessly-and somewhat ludicrously- used as an excuse to abolish elections for regional governors, replacing them with presidential appointments.

Such history makes Putin’s pledge for ‘revenge’ all the more ominous- especially considering his intention to stand for President again next year. Sadly there is a strong likelihood that he will play on state-orchestrated nationalism (the kind that resulted in violent racist riots after a Russian football fan died in a fight with a Caucasian last month) to bolster his support-base. If he does so – the true number of victims from Monday’s attack will be much higher than thirty-five.