POLITZEKI

Yury Shevchuk writes on DDT’s website that a number of the group’s planned concerts in the Russian regions have been cancelled because of pressure by local authorities. In particular, he writes about the banning of concerts in Kemerovo and Yurga where tickets “had almost all been sold.” Yury Shevchuk writes: “In Tymen it was impossible for us to find a venue. In Omsk a minister in the regional government also banned concert halls from putting on our ‘desperate show’.”

Yury Shevcuk pointed out that “all the instructions and decisions were given by slippery officials over the phone, so we cannot even take them to court.” He also believes that “evidently there is not enough ‘patriotic eroticism’ in our new programme.’

The home page of DDT’s website features a television with a picture from Swan Lake and the running line: “Dear Comrades! The Kemerovo concert by the group DDT has been cancelled. DDT is a threat to your consciousness. We care for you. Sleep soundly! Feudal Lords of the Russian Federation.”

Lenta.ru reports that Yury Shevchuk makes no effort to hide his critical attitude to the present government. He was an active participant in the rallies For Fair Elections, and even performed at one of them on 4 February 2012 on Bolotnaya Square, where he sang the songs ‘Oh, Frost, Frost’ and ‘Motherland’.

In the autumn of 2011 DDT issued its latest album, Otherwise, and at the same time began a new large scale tour. The tour began with a concert at Moscow’s Olympic sports arena. In addition to the main concert programme in support of the album Otherwise, the musicians also in some cases present a smaller programme called ‘Solnik’ (Solo), based on the book of the same name by Yury Shevchuk.

The ballet Swan Lake was broadcast on television during the evening of 19 August 1991 at the start of the coup, interrupted only by special news bulletins. Since then people have come to believe that the ballet Swan Lake was shown intentionally. However, it turns out that the broadcast of the ballet was not directly linked with the coup attempt, but had been programmed in advance to be shown that day.

PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee joins international condemnation of the imprisonment of three members of the Russian punk band, Pussy Riot. Last week, on 19 April, their pre-trial detention was extended until 24 June. Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been held since 4 March, and Ekaterina Samusevichsince 15 March. By the next trial hearing, they will have been held for well over three months without trial. PEN believes that the women are being treated particularly harshly because of the lyrics of Pussy Riot’s song that was performed without authorisation at St Saviour’s Cathedral in Moscow on 21 February. It is calling for the women’s release.

On 21 February, four members of the all-female punk rock band, Pussy Riot, entered the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, wearing brightly coloured outfits and balaclavas masking their faces. For a few minutes they danced in front of the altar, singing their “punk prayer” before being removed from the building.

Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samusevich were arrested some days later and charged with “hooliganism” under Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code, which carries a maximum seven-year gaol term. While the three women are part of the band, they say that they were not among the performers at the Cathedral. On 19 April, Tagansky Court in Moscow extended their detention to 24 June saying that more time was needed to find further witnesses and participants at the event. The demonstrations outside the court and statements from the three women were widely covered in the press.

According to reports and videos of the event, there was no damage to the premises, or violence. It is clear that the women are being treated particularly harshly because of the lyrics of the song they performed. Entitled Holy Shit, it lashes out at Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, the it includes the lines “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin, chase Putin out!” Amnesty International, which considers the women as prisoners of conscience, states: Even if the three arrested women did take part in the protest, the severity of the response of the Russian authorities – the detention on the serious criminal charge of hooliganism – would not be a justifiable response to the peaceful – if, to many, offensive – expression of their political beliefs. Read the AI statement in full.

The band had already become famous for other actions. It was formed in late 2011 by a group of feminists to protest Putin’s decision to return as President. Over the following months, they staged sudden unannounced “flash” performances in public places, including on public transport. They came to international attention in January 2012, when they held a brief performance, shouting out lyrics “Revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest! Revolt in Russia, Putin’s got scared! outside the Kremlin. Then they were briefly arrested and fined. For more detail of the arrest and the band see Freemuse, the organisation that works against music censorship:

Support in Russia is high with even mainstream pop artists calling for their release, among them the iconic singer Alla Pugachyova, who has held pop star status through the Soviet era to the present day. She described the arrests as “shooting sparrows with a cannon”. There have been numerous protests in support of the band. Most recently around 100 people demonstrated outside the court on 19 April, with about 20 arrested. Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow and All Russia strongly accused the band as “defiling” the church and called for harsh penalties, while other Orthodox believers have expressed disquiet at this hardline stance and have asked that the women be shown leniency.

Meanwhile the three women face the prospect of another 6 weeks in prison, two of them are separated from their children. At the 19 April hearing, Tolonnikova spoke of the distress that her four year old daughter is suffering because of the imprisonment of her mother. Read more about the Pussy Riot support and activities in their support follow the Free Pussy Riot website http://freepussyriot.org/

Appeals

Please send letters
protesting the detention of Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samusevich
pointing out that they are being treated particularly harshly because of the contents of the song lyrics
referring to Russia’s obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rigths, ratified by Russia, and which protects the right to freedom of expression;
further referring to the fact that the women will be held for more than three months without trial, this time breaching Article 9 of the ICCPR that guarantees the right not to be held in pre-trial detention for lengthy periods of time.

Address

You can send messages to President Medvedev the Kremlin website http://eng.letters.kremlin.ru/ or by mail:

President Dmitry Medvedev
President of the Russian
Federation 23,
Ilyinka Street,
Moscow,103132
Russia

You may find that the Russian ambassador in your own country is more likely to respond to your appeals, so we recommend that you either write to him or her directly or send a copy of your appeal. You can find the Russian embassy in your country here.

Messages of solidarity to the prisoners can be sent via the FreePussyRiot website http://www.freepussyriot.org

**Please check with PEN Writers in Prison Committee if sending appeals after 23 June 2012**

For further information please contact Sara Whyatt at PEN International Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International, Brownlow House, 50-51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER Tel: +44 (02) 20 7405 0338 Fax: +44 (0) 20 74050339 Email: sara.whyatt@pen-international.org

On April 13, Maria Alekhina, a defendant in the case of the “punk prayer” held in the Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, addressed a letter to Orthodox believers in a spirit of reconciliation. 

“I have always held, and continue to hold, a belief that faith of any kind is something personal, and not political. Something childlike, internal, something that gives strength. Not an instrument for manipulation, not a weapon. But on the contrary – something able to defeat weapons.

It is rather hard to face direct questions such as: “So do you believe in God? Now, tell me, do you believe in God’s retribution?” Because I personally could never bring myself to ask anyone such a question. Being rooted in Christian culture, and being aware of this, is the very reason for not asking such questions. However, it is not enough when you are in prison, no one answers questions about God here. That is why I decided to write an open letter to Orthodox believers. I know this is slightly absurd: it means that to a certain degree I am writing to myself.

Quite soon it will be Easter – a religious holiday when the joy of an inexplicable unity among people is in the air and becomes brighter, and when an isolated individual seems all the more incomplete. Now, on the eve of Easter, in Passion Week, I am saying that I would like to celebrate it with a feeling of peace within me and around me. And if someone has been insulted by my actions or words, I hope they can forgive me. I did not and do not intend to offend anyone’s religious feelings.

The present seems like a pendulum between the words “absurdity” and “lawlessness”. The time is stretched between letters of support and meetings with my lawyer. In between there is hope, and re-reading the words of support written to me by people I do not know, who are there for me and who have lent me a helping hand. Only because of them and thanks to them, I can say, quoting Paul the Apostle: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

Because it is men and their strange laws that make me a criminal now. I refuse to believe in this, just as I refuse to believe in the inability of a Christian to forgive. Now and for ever.”

Opposite the Russian Embassy in London there was a special event on April 23: a rally in solidarity with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Ekaterina Samusevitch, three members of the punk group, Pussy Riot, who are under arrest. The rally was organized by a group of English students, using social networks. Disregarding the constant drizzle, the protesters in colourful balaclavas unfurled their banners that said: “Free Pussy Riot!”

At the same time a group of drummers led a rhythmic chant in English and in Russian: “Free! Free! Free! Free Pussy Riot!”. The students consider the three girls, Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samusevitch to be Vladimir Putin’s personal hostages, so at least one of the slogans was addressed directly to him: “Putin! Putin! Putin! Free Pussy Riot!”.

There were suggestions voiced at the rally that people should write to their Members of Parliament, asking them to start a petition that would demand the immediate release of the punk-rocker political prisoners.

By Evgeny Legedin, 24 April 2012

(Source: Moscow Echo Radio)

Some unique details about the detention prison, IZ – 77/6 where the three activists from the girl punk group, Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samusevitch, who have been declared prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International, are kept.

Let us have a little wander round the detention prison, IZ – 77/6, where the three activists from the punk group Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevitch are imprisoned. They are being charged with hooliganism, which comes under Article 213 of the Russian Republic’s Criminal Code and carries a sentence of up to 7 years. They will stay here at least till April 24. We shall also try to work out the why three girls are being kept in these conditions and whether their action (or their misdemeanour as the prosecutor puts it) is really commensurate with being kept in Moscow’s infamous detention prison No. 6.

Never mind the forthcoming trial and sentence, the mere fact of them being kept in this hell-hole is a punishment by itself and it is being done without a trial. And another thing: under no circumstances would I support Pussy Riot’s actions in the cathedral but is it really necessary to keep them in cages together with murderers, terrorists and drug dealers?

Right. Detention prison Pechatniki (IZ – 77/6, 92 Shosseyny Street) is the only pre-trial detention prison for women though there are some men here as well, former employees of law-enforcing authorities, prosecutors and so on. A jolly group, you must admit.

The prison (or, as it is called by the inmates and the guards, the Sixth) is meant to house 1.300 people. It is a three-storey building with all the windows looking out on the courtyard and the street walls are windowless, thus preventing any communication with the outside world. So the inmates have nicknamed it Bastille.

The building is a quadrangle with its sides being taken up with prison cells, service and administrative premises. In the courtyard there is a round space for prisoners to walk in, consisting of several little yards with wire mesh above them just as in concentration camps or so we understand from Soviet films.

On side is a three-storey building with dormitories or common cells that are meant to accommodate 44 people. Each floor has 8 such cells and they are numbered 101 to 108, 201 to 208 and 301 to 308. (Let me remind my readers that as a result of this article the numbers might be unexpectedly changed; such occurrences are not unknown.)

On the first floor we have only those who have already been sentenced and are awaiting the beginning of that sentence and transportation to a penal colony. Those under investigation or have been charged but are not at the end of their trial are on the second and third floors and the three girls, Alyokhina, Tolokonnikova and Samutsevitch are among those. The inmates are divided into two groups: those who have a criminal record and those who do not. I hope that the three girls are among the first because there have been cases of first-timers finding themselves among recidivists, usually in response to a request from investigators so these people should not make the mistake of thinking that life was just a bowl of cherries.

Let us proceed: in the basement of this building is the so-called collecting room, two cells of about 15 sq metres each. This is where women sit waiting to be taken to court and this is where they return to from court. New arrivals are placed into one of four other collecting rooms in the basement, each meant for four people. Here they wait while they are allocated to a cell. This is called quarantine and can last from 2 to 10 days, the length of stay in it depending on decisions taken by the prison authorities and the investigators. In the same basement area we find the searching room and two ordinary cells.

The second side of the rectangle is where we find the so-called “special cells” and “semi-special cells”. The six specials, nos 109, 110, 209, 210, 309, 310, are meant for four people each; three semis specials, nos 113, 213, 313, are meant for eight people; and twelve, nos 111, 112, 114, 115, 211, 212, 214, 215, 311, 312, 314, 315, are for twelve people each.

The third side of this three-storey rectangle has various rooms. On the first floor there are sick bays – cells 116-124 – meant for either two or four people, and also medical laboratories. On the second floor we find medical offices. While we are on the subject of medicine, let us point out that, according to the prison psychiatrist, 15 out of 20 women who enter prison No.6 are drug addicts aged between 18 and 24. More than 100 are HIV positive, infected through the use of dirty needles. The youngest of them is 15.

By Oleg Lurye

(Source: Moscow Echo Radio)

05/04/12

Nadya Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, all in their 20s, face up to seven years in prison if they are convicted on aggravated hooliganism charges. The judge at Moscow’s Tagansky Court refused a defence request to release the trio on bail pending trial and extended custody until June 24.

Earlier, police outside the court detained about two dozen people who wore T-shirts or carried placards in favour of the three. Several musicians and a man who set off a fire extinguisher were among those hustled away by police.

Pussy Riot, whose members wear brightly coloured clothes and knitted balaclavas, caused a sensation in February when they rushed into the Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

Four members of the group rushed up to the ambo, where they danced manically, punched the air and cried: “Black cassock, golden epaulettes; all believers crawl and prostrate.” They also repeated several times: “Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, drive out Putin!”

A video of the incident, in which headscarfed women can be seen trying to usher the young women out of the church, was posted online with a soundtrack of heavy guitars.

The three women were arrested last month and leaders of Russia’s liberal opposition have called for their release, saying their detention and prosecution on a serious hooliganism charge is excessive. Miss Tolokonnikova and Miss Alekhina both have a young child.

At the hearing on Thursday a team of special-forces officers carrying automatic weapons was deployed in a tiny, stuffy courtroom, where a scrum of journalists had gathered. The handcuffed defendants were led one by one to the metal defendants’ cage.

Speaking from behind the bars, Miss Tolokonnikova, said she had no regrets about the punk prayer and thanked supporters for sending her food parcels. She asked the judge to release her on bail so that she could seek treatment for migraines and care for her four-year-old daughter, Gera. The request was refused on grounds that she might flee.

Miss Tolokonnikova’s husband, Petr Verzilov, 24, an artist, told the Daily Telegraph: “This prosecution was clearly ordered by Vladimir Putin because he felt personally insulted. I believe no punishment at all was necessary.”

Also attending the hearing was Dmitry Bykov, one of Russia’s most celebrated contemporary writers. He commented: “The leaders of western countries should stand up and condemn this. In the Brezhnev era dissidents always knew they had support abroad. Now you are sitting by as three young women are effectively tortured.”

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has condemned Pussy Riot, saying “the devil laughed at us” when they performed in the cathedral.

Most of the protesters arrested outside the court were reportedly released by evening.

By Tom Parfitt, Moscow

(Source: The Telegraph)

Magistrate of court №9 in Kazan Ernest Murtazin declared to drop the charges against blogger Yury Egorov, who was sentenced earlier to suspended 6 months on the charge of libelling of Tatarstan’s Ombudsmen Rashit Vagizov.

Explaining the legal subtleties of the case, Irina Khrunova, Egorov’s lawyer and legal analyst at the Agora Human Rights Association, said: “Yury Egorov was convicted of libel on 9 June 2011. The sentence came into force on 18 November. Egorov was deemed to have been given a suspended sentence. But on 7 December libel was decriminalised. In other words it simply no longer exists in the Criminal Code. After that it was just a matter of time before the punishment was waived by a decision of the court as a consequence of this decriminalisation.”

“As I said previously, I do not consider myself guilty,” Yury Egorov declared. “I did not libel citizen Vagizov. Evidently, they didn’t find a good enough investigator, or they didn’t want to find one who might have brought this whole story to light. A complaint has been lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on my case. I am confident that this will put everything in its proper place and force this country to respect its own laws. I still don’t know what happened to my computer, which the court ordered to be destroyed as an instrument of crime. But I believe that this part of the sentence is possibly the most foolish in legal history.”

Readers will recall that, having voluntarily resigned as a member of staff in the Ombudsman’s office in 2007, Egorov was given a suspended sentence of six months’ imprisonment on probation for a statement made on the internet regarding Vagizov’s actitivities, and specifically a report on what, in his opinion, was a dubious wage distribution scheme.

According to the indictment, Egorov, “knowingly disseminated false information that discredited Vagizov’s honour and dignity and undermined his reputation”, by reporting on a web forum that staff at the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman in Tatarstan, “had received the minimum due them… which resulted in the fund making economies in wage payments to the tune of 400,000 to 600,000 roubles a year, which were signed off by the accountant and the office manager.” However, the case materials show 11 orders for bonus payments made from February to July 2007 paid to senior specialist (accountant) Lyudmilla Fazlieva and officer manager Musa Ziyatdinov to a total of 355,000 roubles. Each of these orders was labelled with a letter, for example, Order No.145a of 2 July 2007 (to Fazlieva – 15,000 roubles, to Ziyatdinov – 10,000 roubles), Order No.146a of 9 July (to Fazlieva – 30,000, Ziyatdinov – 20,000), Order No.146b of 9 July (Fazlieva – 20,000, Ziyatdinov – 10,000) and Order No.148a of 10 July (to Fazlieva – 20,000, Ziyatdinov – 10,000). Thus, in just 10 days in July 2007, according to the orders in the case materials, two employees at the Tatarstan Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office were awarded bonuses of 135,000 roubles. According to the debit slips and payroll sheets made available to the case, the remaining orders from February to July (of a further 220,000 roubles to Fazlieva and Ziyatdinov) were also only made in July 2007.

When questioned in court Gulshat Nasibullina, Rashit Vagizov’s former chief accountant, informed the court that after taking up her job, Rashit Vagizov had personally proposed a scheme to her under which she should award herself bonuses and then pass them on to him. According to Nasibullina’s evidence, Vagizov told her that “that was how it had been done previously”, that he had a lot of business trip expenses and that he had to bring in academics who he was not officially allowed to pay. Nasibullina informed the court that after she had twice refused to implement this scam, Vagizov began to freeze her out of her job, and after her resignation initiated criminal proceedings against her.

Readers will recall that Nasibullina was accused of embezzling 58,848 roubles of public funds as a result of an investigation into the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office carried out by the Tatarstan Audit Chamber. Vagizov asserted that allegedly after his return from a business trip to the USA in December 2007, Gulshat Nasibullina had debited expenses for the above mentioned trip from the payroll that were in excess of the actual amount. However, the costs of this official business trip had been paid in full to Vagizov by the American Embassy. The defence pointed out that Nasibullina had not embezzled the money but given it to Vagizov with a written acknowledgement of receipt. An expenses cash voucher was checked by the investigation, which showed that Rashit Vagizov had received 59,000 roubles from the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office as compensation for the cost of the trip. An appraisal carried out by a hand writing expert came to the unambiguous conclusion that the signature on the voucher was not a forgery and belonged to Vagizov. The criminal case against Gulshat Nasibullina, whose interests were also represented by the Agora Association, was terminated for a lack of any evidence of a crime.

Rashit Vagizov initially refused to come to court, he even sent a declaration stating that he was undergoing treatment outside the city and asked the magistrate to examine the criminal case against his former subordinate Yury Egorov without his participation. However, on 15 April the alleged victim in the case Vagizov was finally cross examined. He stated that he had not forced anyone to resign and that the questions of bonuses had been discussed collectively with his colleagues. However, according to Yury Egorov’s lawyer Irina Khrunova, at the beginning of the proceedings other former employees at the office had given evidence to the contrary and most of the facts stated by Vagizov were not corroborated.

After Vagizov’s statement that he had awarded bonuses to all the staff equally and in accordance with their merits and that the bonuses had been agreed with the accounts department, Irina Khrunova asked him two questions: “Why did some staff receive bonuses of 1,500 roubles and others 100,000? What was the procedure for agreeing bonuses and how can you confirm what you said about the accountancy office? Rashit Vagizov answered that to all appearances the differences in the bonuses could be explained by the fact that some of the staff missed work. In addition, one of the bonuses for 100,000 roubles had been awarded to the office manager because he was planning to get married and “it was decided to give him a large bonus”. The lawyer for the defence could not understand why Tatarstan’s public finances should cover the wedding costs of an employee at the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office. As regards the decisions on making the bonus payments, the former Ombudsman for Human Rights in Tatarstan declared that he did not remember exactly with whom he had agreed these issues and that everything had been done verbally. In other words he was unable to back up his words with documentary evidence.

Irina Khrunova noted that Vagizov answered her questions very nervously, loudly expressing his indignation and complaining that he was being forced to recall incidents that took place a long time ago. He called any requests for clarification “cheap tricks” or “insinuations”. He reminded everyone that he had worked as a prosecutor for many years, that he had taken part in many court proceedings on behalf of the prosecution and that therefore “they would not succeed in catching him out”. Rashit Vagizov also stated that the words of his former employee Yury Egorov were “utterly libellous”. But Rashit Vagizov was not able to explain precisely what in Egorov’s internet texts had been libellous, referring to the fact that he didn’t remember.

A Pussy Riot supporter is arrested by Russian police outside a court in Moscow. Photograph: Andrei Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images

Dozens gather to protest against arrests of three women over performance of anti-Putin song in Moscow cathedral.

Russian police have detained at least 13 people demonstrating outside a court against the arrests of three members of a women’s punk rock group, witnesses say.

The court was to decide whether to extend the detention of the three women, part of the Pussy Riot group that performed a protest song against the president elect, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February.

About 60 of the group’s supporters chanted: “Freedom! Freedom!” outside the beige brick Moscow courthouse, and some released green, pink and yellow balloons with Pussy Riot’s trademark masks drawn on them.

Scuffles broke out when a Russian Orthodox bystander threw an egg at the husband of one of the three detainees. A Reuters reporter saw police drag at least 13 people off into police vans, two of them for throwing a smoke bomb.

The three women could face seven years in jail on hooliganism charges but deny taking part in the protest. No date has been set for the trial and the court was expected to extend their pre-trial detention.

Anger over their arrests has fuelled criticism of the Russian Orthodox church, whose status has improved vastly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and which has played an increasingly active role in politics since then.

Russians are divided over Pussy Riot’s “punk prayer” protest. Many believers were offended by the protest but some are also upset that church leaders have called for tough sentences in the case.

Patriarch Kirill, who has described the performance as part of an attack on the Russian Orthodox church, is also under fire over a lifestyle which critics say is lavish and unbecoming of the head of the church.

(Source: The Guardian)

So, do you recall Sergei Mokhnatkin?

As I understand it, Mokhnatkin was a pizza delivery man and was walking through Triumphalnaya Square not realizing even that a rally was going on there. Then he saw that the cops were dragging a middle-aged woman along the road and shouted at them: “What do you think you are doing?”. This was witnessed by a number of people.

He got his own reward for shouting: was beaten up and taken off to the police station together with 60 genuine oppositionists. Mokhnatkin wrote a formal statement in which he told how he had been beaten up and he asked the authorities to sort out his case. He was then allowed to go.

Read More →

Rally in support of members of Pussy Riot under arrest on April 23, at 6 p.m. outside the Russian Embassy in Bayswater Road.

Join the Free Pussy Riot Fundraiser the day before our protest:
https://www.facebook.com/events/147284122067968/

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
http://www.full-stop.net/2012/02/16/blog/helen-stuhr-rommereim/pussy-riot-in-translation/

PUSSY RIOT speak: “we realized that this country needs a militant, punk-feminist, street band that will rip through Moscow’s streets and squares, mobilize public energy against the evil crooks of the Putinist junta and enrich the Russian cultural and political opposition with themes that are important to us: gender and LGBT rights, problems of masculine conformity, absence of a daring political message on the musical and art scenes, and the domination of males in all areas of public discourse.”
http://www.vice.com/read/A-Russian-Pussy-Riot

Now two of their members are in prison, awaiting a trial for ‘hooliganism’ on April 24th.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17366601

Pull on your neon balaclava, pick up an electric guitar, get yourself down to the RUSSIAN EMBASSY to protest with these women. Meet at 6pm. Pussy Riot at 6.30pm.

On the evening before their trial we will make sure that PUTIN knows women around the world are watching him. In solidarity with PUSSY RIOT.

HOW TO MAKE A BALACLAVA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p97YEvRMEA

PUSSY RIOT FUNDRAISER 22.04.12 @ Shacklewell Arms : http://www.facebook.com/events/147284122067968/

Source: http://www.facebook.com/events/337054436346614/

Belorussian KGB caught three Chechens who allegedly helped to cross the boarder into EU countries for asylum seekers. URGENT ACTIONS ARE REQUIRED to identity them and protest against going-to-be extradition to Russia.

Please ask politicians of your countries, delegates of EU and PACE from your countries to contact with Belorussia Authorities and demand to stop extradition of Chechens. Call personally to Belorussia. Inform journalists and Human Right organizations.

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Albert Zagitov had barely set up his new fruit and vegetable stall at the bustling Volga market in the Russian city of Kazan when he was told by a stranger to pack up and go.

After he refused, he was taken to a police car and driven to a police station where he says four officers took turns to hit him in the head and chest and threatened to rape him.

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Russia said Monday it had dropped charges against a doctor implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, sparking accusations that the authorities had no interest in seeking justice in the case.

Larisa Litvinova was one of only two people, both prison doctors, to be charged after a long-running and high-profile investigation into what activists see as one of Russia’s most outrageous post-Soviet rights violations.

Magnitsky died in 2009 at the age of 37 from untreated medical conditions including acute pancreatis after being held in a notoriously squalid prison during a fraud probe against his client, US investment firm Hermitage Capital.

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9/April/2012, London, Russian Embassy, rally in support of Dmitri Rozhin/Photograph: Andrei Korchagin

The Russian youth movement  OBORONA (DEFENCE) has called on Russian authorities to release one of Russia’s most prominent human rights lawyers Dmitri Rozhin apparently persecuted for political reasons for nearly three years, as his flawed trial is set to resume on 10 April.

A Statement of OBORONA:

Dmitry Rozhin, a delegate to the 19th Session of the UN’s Human Rights Council, rapporteur on the mechanics of human rights defence in Russia and one of the founders of the organization Fundamental Rights (Pravovaya Osnova), was arrested on his return from Geneva to Yekaterinburg on April 2.

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MOSCOW — “Day 24 is over,” Oleg Shein wrote in his blog just after midnight on April 8. “Tomorrow is Day 25. We are not on a suicide mission. Nor are we on a mission to make me the mayor. We are on a mission to secure fair elections that will put an end to the mafia system of government in Astrakhan.”

The politician Oleg Shein and 21 of his supporters are on hunger strike — most of them since March 16. Shein ran for mayor of Astrakhan, a city of just over half a million people in southern Russia, near where the Volga River joins the Caspian Sea. On March 4, Shein lost with under 30 percent of the vote — and, like many independent candidates around the country, he claims the election was stolen.

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Human rights defenders have commented on the statement by the Investigative Committee that Mikhail Khodorkovsky financed civil society organisations whose representatives were participants in the Working Group of the Presidential Human Rights Council examining the second Yukos case.

“Within the framework of the so-called ‘main Yukos case’, documents were obtained that the civil society organization Open Russia, founded by Yukos, at the beginning of the 2000s provided funding, in particular, to the human rights organisation Memorial, the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Public Verdict Foundation and others.” And according to the Investigative Committee, representatives of these organisations took part in the independent review of the second Yukos case.

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The Russian authorities became aware of the power of social media late, but have since been making up for lost time with a campaign of dirty tricks against the opposition’s web presence. Irina Borogan and Andrey Soldatov outline the history of the government’s strategy and assess its effectiveness.

Russian’s cyberspace looks pretty free compared to that of China, where access to Facebook, Twitter and independent websites is blocked by the government. The Kremlin has been involved in the creation of new media websites since 2000, but for many years the blogosphere and social networks were left to develop unnoticed. It was only towards the end of the 2000s that the Kremlin made its first incursions into the blogosphere, and the Arab Spring, when several Middle Eastern regimes were toppled, finally alerted the government and its security chiefs to the role of social networks in the organisation of protest actions.

The security services’ position

It looks as though the security services began to formulate a policy on blogging and social networks in the wake of the Arab Spring, but didn’t manage to come up with anything before the start of the December protests in Moscow. Accustomed as they were to countering traditional threats to the system, they were at a loss when confronted with both a movement with no organisational centre and reluctance among internet entrepreneurs to heed idiotic orders from above that threatened to disrupt their business.

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Photograph: Anton Novoderzhkin/ITAR-TASS

“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this lfe” (Luke 21:34)

For all those years of activism I have been lucky enough to work with people who are quite unusual in Moscow. They did not try to get any money or any consumer goods. They did not frequent “Zhan-Zhak”. If they did go to a café they tended to choose ones where they could sit and talk, discuss and plan further actions, preferably without having to order anything. If they wanted to eat they just broke a piece off a loaf of bread. They were reluctant to waste their time and their consciousness that was ready to enclose and transform all that was around them on constant consumerist competitiveness, on a race towards the achievement of greater comforts.

Their hearts were not taken up by too much eating or too much drinking; their thoughts, instead, were fully taken up by the work they were doing at that moment. They worked very hard, their activity was all-engrossing and they were not held back by the knowledge that the only payment they were likely to receive for their work was a stretch in prison. Their lives were taken up either by self-education or by self-training or by activity defined by virtue. After all, philosophers should not describe the world around them but change it. Happiness consists of living according to virtuous definitions. I am happy even here – at least, some of the time.

Jesus Christ said: “In patience possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19). It is hard for me to go on without contact with those people who made up my life. But I possess my soul in patience and learn to deal with those people who surround me now. All around me are people who have spent their lives trying to achieve greater comfort and considered their standard of living of the greatest importance. Now they are equal in comfort. Most of them cannot understand why anyone should think of creating political art if there is no money in it.

“I don’t understand about 80% of what you say”, - said a girl who is in under Article 228 (narcotics), when I try to explain to her why I attend rallies and take part in political activities. “You’ve been brainwashed.” “Who is paying for all this?” “You’ve got some clever men there who will organize things for you.” That’s what I keep hearing from those who are here under Article 228 (narcotics). Those in prison under Article 159 (economic crimes) understand what I am saying, at least up to a point, and sympathize with Khodorkovsky, Kozlov and Romanova but they, too, assume that we are all part of a large politico-technological movement that attracts “clever men” and big financial interests. I continue my discussions with my cell-mates and explain to them my activities, their meaning and motivation. Some people in Pre-trial detention centre No. 6 are beginning to accept that the whole Pussy Riot was started by a number of politically motivated young women with strong motivation, energy and will power.

Jesus Christ was accused of blasphemy. If there had been Article 213 two millennia ago, He would have been charged under it. He called people to asceticism and selfless devotion but earthly rulers who would not want to give up their special limousines condemned Him. And He warned us: “But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils” (Matthew 10:17).

Beware but go and preach to them, preach without a penny payment, preach though you will be abused and lied about, preach all over the earth to Jews and Hellenes alike. Two thousand years later Pussy Riot has much more modest aims. We have no desire to found a new church, we merely ask people to look with scepticism at some earthly representatives of the Christian Church. With those more modest aims we came to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and were thrown behind bars and delivered up to the councils. We are not messiahs. But maybe (who can tell?) Pussy Riot is a sign of the coming of a new spiritual time in the history of humanity – an age of freedom as it was predicted by Russian philosophers.

I spent the whole of last Sunday making notes on the Epistles. What interested me particularly was the continuity in the concepts of law and grace, which applies equally to the Old and the New Testaments. The contrast between those ideas was the basis on which people like Merezhkovsky, Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov built their ideas about the coming new phase in human history that will be the crowning one – that age of Freedom, which will come after the age of law, proclaimed by the Old Testament and the age of the love of Christ, righteousness and faith, proclaimed by the New Testament. Perhaps the acceptance of human rights and liberties as a priority in the West in the twentieth century is also a sign of the approach of that new age of freedom and creativity, just as the Pussy Riot concert was. Berdyaev maintained that creativity will be the cornerstone of the new age of freedom. Love will metamorphose into freedom and with that the world will change. This has already begun.