Tag Archives: pussy riot

Human Rights Violations in Russia

Posted on by

Russia has a sad history of human rights abuses, spanning issues from the 2013 law banning “propaganda of nontraditional relationships” to the imprisonment of Pussy Riot in 2012 for an act of free speech. After researching Pussy Riot, I am aware that they performed in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and chose the location in part because of their outrage in the church leaders’ support of Putin in his election. Members of Pussy Riot were arrested for “hooliganism” as well as for acts of religious hatred. Would their 2-year imprisonment have been enforced as harshly in the Soviet Union, when the government was more anti-religious? How does the political atmosphere affect the state of human rights?

How is Putin able to commit these abuses of human rights and still maintain his high popularity ratings? Does opposition by groups, such as Amnesty International, make any impact in Russia? How does the majority of the Russian population, particularly in cities like Moscow, view the arrests and disappearances of human rights activists?

In the preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, more than 2,000 families were apparently forced to resettle to make room for Olympic venues, and were not given fair compensation. Fair compensations was also reportedly not given to workers who built Olympic venues. In light of these human rights abuses, does it not send a poor message that Western countries which claim to uphold and defend human rights, such as the United States, still attended and competed in the Olympic Games? What can the United States do differently to preserve a firm stance against human rights abuses?

Leaving Moderates Out in the Cold

Posted on by

Reading The Catechism of the Revolutionary and Demands of the Narodnaia Volia reminded me of Pussy Riot. Both groups want roughly the same thing (considering the time periods in which they are from). In a documentary I watched about Pussy Riot and the trial proceeding their ‘performance’ at Christ the Savior Cathedral, a prosecutor approached the women and told them their actions essentially alienated liberals and prevented moderates from joining a more liberal camp. The Catechism and Demands essentially do just that. Any moderate person of the time reading the documents would most likely be put off by such a radical, far left.

The Catechism of the Revolutionary makes extraordinary demands of revolutionaries, essentially detailing out a revolutionary’s entire life. Revolutionaries may not have friends or family, and cannot do anything unless it benefits the organization. The document makes revolutionaries out to be terrorist operatives, essentially devoid of humanity and feeling (unless it forwards the goals of the organization). On the other hand, Demands of the Narodnaia Volia confirms any suspicions that these revolutionaries might be operatives.

Part D of the Demands of the Narodnaia Volia lays out the various operations of the terrorist organization. Item number two specifically discusses “destructive and terrorist activity”, essentially condoning any actions or deaths, if they are in the best interests of the organization’s goals. The entire document makes the Narodnaia Volia out to be a cold, extremely focused organization.

These documents were both intriguing to me. Have either of these been applied to and used for modern terrorist organizations? How many people could truly call themselves ‘revolutionaries’ and how seriously were the rules in the Catechism taken?

Pussy Riot Member Moved without Family’s Knowledge

Posted on by

The jailed member of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was moved to a Siberian prison during an almost month-long period while her family was unaware of her whereabouts. Russian prison authorities moved Tolokonnikova after a highly publicized hunger strike over a distance of several thousand miles without telling her family  where she was being moved. Movement of prisoners often takes this long because the trains that transport the prisoners stop many times in different prisons throughout Russia. Russian authorities also are not legally required to say where a prisoner is being moved until after a transfer has taken place.

Today it was confirmed that after 24 days without contact with her family, Tolokonnikova was moved to a prison in the region where she once lived with her mother, Krasnoyarsk. Her husband initially believed Tolokonnikova was being moved to the town of Nizhny Ingash, which is 185 miles away from Krasnoyarsk. Tolokonnikova is currently in the hospital for convicts in Krasnoyarsk instead of the prison, being treated in a tuberculosis hospital. While she does not have tuberculosis, she is being treated for the hunger strike complications.

Is it ethical to move prisoners without notifying their families? What would the American reaction be if something like this happened to a prisoner in the United States?

 

 

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gciKYJkfXvRRedTJWDS9iejQ0eyw?docId=514fe0ae-a58a-4779-ae62-7d5be9df86c5

Pussy Riot

Posted on by

Much has been made of the arrest of the Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and her hunger strike in prison. She was convicted of “religious hatred inspired hooliganism” in August of 2012 after performing at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and sentenced to 2 years at a women’s penal colony.

Most recently, Tolokonnikova was in the news during her nine-day hunger strike. While she was hospitalized on the tenth day and given a food IV drip, a letter that she wrote appeared online on September 23rd explaining the inhospitable conditions that led to her hunger strike. She described the food as having very little nutritional value and the 16 hour work days to be exhausting. Shortly thereafter, the Commission of the Human Rights Council visited to inspect the colony. In a report released by the HRC a year after she was jailed noted the improvement in the plumbing services in the prison but still recommended that Tolokonnikova  be moved to another unit with less work and medically examined.

Now it appears as though this hunger strike was organized from the outside by members of the HRC and Tolokonnikova’s husband,  Pyotr Verzilov. According to members of the HRC, not only was the hunger strike organized not by Tolokonnikova, but the visit to the penal colony by the HRC was also planned. These members argue that Verzilov and other organizers of the hunger strike treated Tolokonnikova. While the details are hazy, hopefully more will be forthcoming. In the meantime, we can wonder: is it ethical to organize a prison hunger strike if one is not participating in the strike itself? Did the organizers and more importantly, Tolokonnikova’s husband, know the conditions Tolokonnikova was enduring before they planned the strike?