Pussy Riot

Pussy Riot Visits NYC Jail To Support Occupy Wall Street Hero

May 10, 2014 Colin Daileda, www.mashable.com Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Occupy, Pussy Riot

Two members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot visited Rikers Island, New York City's main jail complex, to meet with an inmate who is a hero of Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy protestor, 25-year-old Cecily McMillan, was arrested in March 2012 after she elbowed a police officer in the eye. She faces seven years behind bars after a jury found her guilty on May 5, but McMillan and her supporters say she should never have been convicted in the first place. See also: Pussy Riot, on U.S. Trip, Debuts Twitter Account in English Pussy Riot members Nadezhda "Nadya" Tolokonnikova and Maria "Masha" Alyokhina entered Rikers around 11 a.m. ET and left around 3 p.m.. Speaking with Mashable after the meeting, Alyokhina echoed a similar sentiment of McMillian's supporters. "She's really a hero," Alyokhina said. "We hope that the judge doesn't make any more mistakes."

Pussy Riot Supports Wisconsin Solidarity Singers

March 15, 2014 The Voice Project, www.occupy.com Educate! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Pussy Riot, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

"The solidarity singers who gather daily at the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison have a pair of surprise guest musicians joining their chorus — Pussy Riot. Two members of the notorious Russian female rock group known for their outspoken protests, Nadya Tolokonikova and Masha Alyokhina, make a surprise appearance in a new video extolling Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to drop the state’s prosecution against the singing protesters. Pussy Riot is an 11-member female group known for staging impromptu performances and protests in the streets of Russia, and then editing the footage into music video. The group has vocally opposed many of the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin – in particular his anti-gay policies – and in 2011 three members (including Tolokonikova and Alyokhina) were convicted and imprisoned of “hooliganism” for singing an anti-Putin song outside a cathedral."

Pussy Riot Members Attacked With Green Paint and Rubbish

March 8, 2014 Staff wwww.theguardian.com Educate! Pussy Riot

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina spent nearly two years in prison for performing a "punk prayer" in a protest against Vladimir Putin in a Russian Orthodox church in Moscow. Celebrated in the west as activists who fight for freedom of speech, they are disliked by many people in Russia's socially conservative provinces, where support for Putin is strong. They were freed in December, and went to Sochi on the Black Sea coast last month to film an anti-Putin video while the city was hosting the Winter Olympics. They were briefly detained by police in Sochi and beaten with a whip by Cossacks, who were reinforcing security during the Games.

Pussy Riot Speaks: Still Critical Of Putin’s Rule

December 28, 2013 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Pussy Riot, Russia, Video

Two articles and a video of the press conference held by two members of Pussy Riot after their release from prison. We applaud their plans to develop a human rights organization focused on Russia's prison system. No doubt after seeing prisons from the inside they will have a depth of understanding that will help people in Russia better understand how that system operates. Obviously, similar work is needed in the United States and we have covered the mass incarceration in US prisons as well as issues like solitary confinement on Popular Resistance in the past. We hope that Pussy Riot does not get used by the US Empire in their work. Getting in the middle of global politics could undermine their credibility and diminish their work. We view the US Empire as a grave danger to the world. The comment made by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. about the US role in the world as: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent,” remains true today.

Pussy Riot Still Protesting Putin After Amnesty

December 23, 2013 Maria Vasilyeva and Nikolai Isayev, www.reuters.com Resist! Pussy Riot, Putin, Russia

Two members of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot freed from prison on Monday derided President Vladimir Putin's amnesty that led to their early release as a propaganda stunt and promised to fight for human rights. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, shouted "Russia without Putin" following her release from a Siberian prison, hours after band mate Maria Alyokhina, 25, was freed from jail in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod. The women had two months left to serve but walked free days after a pardon from Putin freed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky eight months before the end of his more than 10-year jail term, decisions widely seen as intended to improve Russia's image before it hosts the Winter Olympics in February. "It is a disgusting and cynical act," Tolokonnikova, looking relaxed in a black coat and chequered shirt, told Reuters at her grandmother's apartment building in the snowbound Siberian city of Kransoyarsk where she was jailed. Tolokonnikova, who staged a hunger strike earlier this year and drew attention to stark conditions and long hours of mandatory labor in the jail where she was previously held, said she would fight for prisoners' rights. "Everything is just starting, so fasten your seat belts," she said, suggesting Pussy Riot - jailed for a "punk prayer" in the main cathedral of Russia's dominant faith - would continue to use attention-grabbing protests to make their point. "We will unite our efforts in our human rights activity," Alyokhina said in Nizhny Novgorod. "We will try to sing our the song to the end."

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