Russians join in call for [anarchist band] trio's release

Guardian (UK) ^ | Saturday 30 June 2012 07.21 EDT | Miriam Elder, Moscow

[DeaconBenjamin]

P*ssy Riot try to perform at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow.

Nearly four months after three women were arrested for performing a protest anthem inside Moscow's most important Orthodox church, Christ the Saviour cathedral, a growing number of Russians join calls for their freedom.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alehina – all members of the anarchic P*ssy Riot punk band – have been in prison since March, held on charges of hooliganism. Many Muscovites were happy enough to see a tough response to the band's irreverent act of rebellion, aimed at President Vladimir Putin. But with no trial date set, no signs that they will be released and opposition to Putin spreading, support for the trio has grown, even among those who at first condemned them.

"Their actions insulted me, because I'm religious," said Alexander Ivanov, a popular musician. "It's not what they said, it's where they did it. I was offended – but for them to get seven years in jail for an unsuccessful experiment, that's going too far."

Ivanov is one of more than 100 cultural figures who signed an open letter calling on the state to release the women. "It scares me that, for a rather unsuccessful, but extreme, cultural experiment, they want to jail them for so many years," he said.

Some of Russia's best-known opposition figures signed the letter. Other names were more surprising, such as actress Chulpan Khamatova and actor Yevgeny Mironov, both of whom appeared in videos for Putin's re-election campaign earlier this year. Director Fyodor Bondarchuk, a prominent supporter of Putin's, also added his name.

The domestic groundswell of opinion comes after a concerted international campaign. Benefits have been held in Prague, Warsaw and Tallinn, where the Estonian president was in attendance.

[DeaconBenjamin]

Interesting indication of division within Putin's supporters.

[PAR35]

My guess is that Putin himself has approved of this ‘groundswell’.

[ETL]

Putin praises Cold War moles for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets
Reuters ^ | Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:04pm EST | Steve Gutterman
"Putin's remarks referred to the dawn of the Cold War more than half a century ago, but they echoed a message he has made loud and clear more recently: that the United States needs to be restrained, and Russia is the country to do it. …

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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KGB Putin thinks the "COLLAPSE" of the mass-murdering communist Soviet Union was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century"

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
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"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism’s crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmY0MjI1MDgyYjg1M2UwNDMzMTk2Mjk5YTk0ZTdlMWE=
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[ETL]

My guess is that Putin himself has approved of this 'groundswell'.

Could be. The Russians are masters of deception. They're outstanding chess players, thinking many moves ahead of their opponents. Most of us, unfortunately, suck at simple checkers and are easily fooled.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DeaconBenjamin.

Many Muscovites were happy enough to see a tough response to the band's irreverent act of rebellion, aimed at President Vladimir Putin. But with no trial date set, no signs that they will be released and opposition to Putin spreading, support for the trio has grown, even among those who at first condemned them.

Nice to see that punk exists in the former USSR. Reminds me of thirty years ago, when the favorite band over there was Uriah Heep.