Over the past weekend, Russian authorities arrested suspected members of Pussy Riot (the members of the band keep their identity secret), a feminist punk band that has bravely ridiculed the recently re-elected Putin regime. According to the New York Times, the two suspects are being held for up to 60 days, “until a hearing scheduled for late April.” Both arrestees are young mothers and have been denied bail.
The timing of the arrests, on the eve of the Russian presidential election, illustrates the political (and possibly illegal) justification behind their detention. The Guardian reports that the two suspects, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhin, have begun a hunger strike until they are reunited with their children. If convicted of “inciting religious hatred as part of a planned conspiracy” (one of their performances was inside Moscow cathedral, criticizing Putin’s close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church), the two women could face up to 7 years in prison.
Our own Helen Stuhr-Rommereim provided a translation of some of Pussy Riot’s “guerrilla performances,” reprinted below (with video):
Putin Pissed Himself
A mutinous column marches on the Kremlin
Blowing up windows of FSB offices
Bitches piss on the Kremlin walls
Announcing a riot, Abort the System!
Act at dawn? Don’t start to question
For our and your freedom we’ll whip them to submission
The glorious Madonna will teach us to fight
The feminist Magdalena stood up for democracy
Revolt in Russia! Charisma of protest!
Revolt in Russia! Putin pissed himself!
Revolt in Russia! We exist!
Revolt in Russia! Riot! Riot!
Walk out on the street!
Live on Red Square!
Demonstrate freedom
With citizen rage!
Dissatisified with a culture of masculine hysteria
An uncontrolled autocracy devours our brains
The Orthodox religion is a hardened penis
Coercing its patients to accept conformity
Soon the regime will censor our dreams
The time has come for the battle to explode
A band of bitches of a sexist regime
Asks for forgiveness, armed with a feminist spike
Revolt in Russia! Charisma of protest!
Revolt in Russia! Putin pissed himself!
Revolt in Russia! We exist!
Revolt in Russia! Riot! Riot!
Go out on the street!
Live on Red Sqaure!
Demonstrate freedom
With citizen rage!
***
Kropotkin-Vodka
Occupy the city, it’s your kitchen, it’s your frying pan
Walk out with a vacuum, have an orgasm
Pervert the battalions of political chicks
While stripped naked cops celebrate the new reforms
Fuck the sexist fucking Putinists
Kropotkin-Vodka splashes in our stomachs
You are doing fine, but those Kremlin bastards
Have got an uprising of out-houses, a deadly poisoning
Migalki won’t help, soon they’ll meet Kennedy
Fuck the snitching fucking bosses!
Took some kind of nap, but the day still grinds on
Brass knuckles in my pocket, feminism with a sharp edge
Carry that soup over to Eastern Siberia
Then our riot will become sufficiently rude
Fuck the sexist fucking Putinists!
FREE PUSSY RIOT!
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