Show trial in the USSR were an integral instrument of Stalin’s oppressive regime and the practice has been revived in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to stifle any and all demonstrations against his rule.
Last February three members of the punk group Pussy Riot entered Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ to perform PRAYER beseeching the Mother of God to drive away the evil Putin. The trio were arrested for hooliganism and incarcerated to await trial. Amnesty International recognized the trio as political prisoners, the Grand Patriarch of All Russia condemned the sacrilege by saying, “The Devil has laughed at all of us.”
The trial has lasted eight days and a verdict is expected within the next day.
Band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova countered the religious leader from within the defendants’ glass and steel holding pen, “I, like Solzhenitsyn, believe that words will crush concrete. We sit in a cage, but we didn’t lose. And the dissidents didn’t lose. Disappearing in psychiatric wards and jails, they convicted the regime.”
And Maria Alyokhina spoke indirectly to Putin, “I am not afraid of you. You can take away my ‘so-called’ freedom, but you can never take my inner freedom.”
The three woman, two of whom are mothers, could be sentenced to seven years in prison, if found guilty.
Punks are always hooligans.
They are always guilty of innocence.
вольность, вольность, вольность
To view PRAYER by Pussy Riot, please go to the following URL