On April 21 a demonstration was held at Sydney's Russian consulate in solidarity with three young women imprisoned by the Russian state. They stand accused of being members of Pussy Riot and performing a punk prayer on the alter of Russia's central cathedral.
Pussy Riot are a militant punk-feminist, street band that was formed in September 2011 after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced his presidential election bid. In the words of one anonymous Pussy Rioter, their goals are to “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.”
Their performances and the arrests that followed occurred in the context of the sudden upsurge in dissident activity and an intensification of repression by Putin’s suddenly besieged regime.
On November 20 2011 American anarchist MMA fighter Jeff Monson was beaten by Russian Fedor Emelianenko and as part of his upcoming election campaign Putin entered the ring to congratulate the victor. Putin’s entrance was greeted by immediate boos and calls to “get out” which continued throughout his short speech. Video of the previously unthinkable incident quickly spread through Russian social media and was widely hailed as the beginning of the end of Putin’s 12 year reign. The booing was considered such an attack on his image of strength and invulnerability that Putin’s office made the absurd claim that spectators were merely booing because they wanted to go to the toilet.
In subsequent months an unprecedented wave of demonstrations have exploded across Russia following the widely denounced parliamentary elections on the 4th of December. Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators took to the streets in Moscow, St Petersburg and 88 other cities in public shows of defiance unlike anything since the collapse of the USSR. Over a thousand demonstrators were reportedly arrested in Moscow on the first day of protests alone and the number of protesters arrested across Russia since is unknown. In response to the state repression an unsanctioned rally was called in Moscow on December 30 in support of all political prisoners. Opposition groups report there are several thousand political prisoners convicted under administrative and criminal charges for obviously political reasons. These claims are denied by Putin who stated “In my view, we do not have political prisoners, thank God, even though everyone is talking about them without saying exact names, I wish they’d showed me a single man who is now behind bars for political reasons.”
In December Pussy Riot publicly highlighted the plight of political prisoners with an illegal performance on the roof of a prison filled with anti Putin demonstrators, of their action one of the group said “all of us are really fond of the act we did on the roof of one of the buildings of a Detention Center in Moscow, where people were arrested after the December 5 post-election protests were held. The political detainees could see us from inside their prison cells and they chanted and cheered while we sang the "Death to Prisons—Freedom to Protest" song. Prison officers and staff were running around not knowing what to do because they had no idea how to immediately take us off that roof. And they got so scared they immediately ordered a lockdown—they must've thought a siege of the Detention Centre was coming after we finished singing. That was cool.”
This action was followed by an illegal performance of "Revolt in Russia" on Red Square in January 2012, for which 8 band members were arrested but eventually released without charge. Then on February 21, four members of Pussy Riot entered the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow wearing their usual brightly coloured dresses and balaclavas, danced and sang a song calling on “Virgin Mary” to “Banish Putin” and escaped without arrest. On March 3 Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, both mothers to young children were arrested, soon followed by Ekaterina Samutsevicha a week later. The women have denied participation in the ‘punk prayer’ though have all been charged with hooliganism in relation to the incident with a possible sentence of seven years imprisonment.
On the 21st of April in Sydney, a group of anarchists inspired by the band gathered in colourful dresses and balaclavas. 8 of us on bicycles and another 12 piled into a van with two banners reading "NO JUSTICE IN PUTIN´S RUSSIA" & "Богородица, Путина прогони (VIRGIN MARY, BANISH PUTIN)" stretched across either side. Attached to one bicycle was a trailer carrying a loud sound-system, blasting Pussy Riot songs. We rode for 40 minutes through the city to the Russian consulate in Woollahra, intentionally slowing traffic while flyers detailing the plight of the three women and the repression of Russian activists were thrown from the windows of the van to people on the sidewalk while those on bicycles handed flyers to other drivers and many pedestrians.
We were joined by another 5 comrades at the consulate where we displayed 4 banners including "FREE PUSSY RIOT" and "NO PRISON NO STATE". We climbed the consulate walls, screamed for the freedom of Alyokhina , Tolokonnikova, Samutsevicha and all Russian prisoners and danced and sung to Pussy Riot from the speakers. During this time we were photographed and filmed by consulate officials from the 4th and 6th floor of the building and after about a half hour two police cars sped down the street, both screeching to a halt with 4 officers literally jumping out screaming, with raised batons. We stood our ground with the banners but after a brief argument and altercation with the pigs, a third cop car, then an arrest vehicle then a Federal Police car all pulled up. We then decided it was time to depart and rode out of area without any arrests and continued to hand out fliers throughout the city.
Our small demonstration was merely one amongst hundreds of Pussy Riot solidarity actions throughout Russia and across the world over the past month. In spite of the popular demands for their release, on April 19 a Moscow judge extended their pretrial detention until at least June 24. In response a 36 year old supporter Andrei Borodin reportedly made an attempt on the judge with an axe, but was subdued, arrested and is now facing a potential life sentence.
In opposition to the growing tide of anti-Putin & free Pussy Riot demonstrations across the country, reactionary Patriarchs led by Primate Kirill I of Moscow, organised a mass prayer on April 23 at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral to ‘defend the Orthodox Church’. Kirill is a wealthy Kremlin insider and vehement Putin supporter who has called Putin’s reign ‘a miracle of God’,has accused Pussy Riot of working with the devil and has repeatedly demanded their arrest and imprisonment.
May 6 is marked to be a showdown between pro and anti Putin groups, both promising mass demonstrations in Moscow the day before Putin’s May 7 inauguration.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH THE MOVEMENT AGAINST THE PUTINIST JUNTA
DEATH TO PRISON, FREEDOM TO MARIA ALEKHINA, NADEZHDA TOLOKONNIKOV, EKATERINA SAMUTSEVICH, ANDREI BORODIN & ANTIFASCISTS ALEXEY OLESINOV & ALEXEY SUTUGA
AGAINST PATRIARCHS AND PATRIARCHY
http://freepussyriot.org/
https://avtonom.org/en
http://blackblocg.info/main-page
