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Pussy Riot arrive at Ex-Communist prison camps
Wednesday 24th October 2012 | slavica
Two members of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk collective, have arrived at prison camps used for mass prison colonies during the dark communistic, totalitaristic Soviet era.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, will have to serve her two year sentence at a women's prison camp in Perm, Siberia, an infamous region for hosting the Soviet Union's harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, inland of Russia that also holds a high number of prisons. "These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices," the band said via its Twitter on Monday.
Their lives turned into a nightmare after performing an anti-Putin "punk anthem" in a Moscow cathedral in February which led to arrest and finally convictions of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.Inspite of all the deprecations of different world's human rights organizations and support given by different politicians and music stars, Russian court sentenced them to two years merely for something that in the eyes of the world is known to be artistic freedom of expression or even just freedom of speech. They argued that their conviction was part of a growing crackdown on free speech and political activism in Russia.
This two victims of Russian legislative system, which fails in respecting basic human rights, are expected to serve their sentences until 2014, hundreds of kilometers away from their families althrough they pleaded to serve sentences close to Moscow. One of the reasons were their underage kids - Maria is mother of 5-year-old Filip and Nadezhda of 4-year-old Gera.
By only practicing their artistic expression, now the young artists are faced with having to find a way to survive in 1920s work camps, something we thought lives only in horrific documentary films based on dark ages of Communism. Life without toilets, a sewage system and forced to work exposed to low temperatures of Russian everlasting winter is now their reality.
And why are they punished so brutally? What did apparently touch the very sensitive ego of big Russian leader? Well it is hard to believe that these words got them in this kind of trouble (translation-courtesy of Guardian poetry writer Carol Rumens):
'Congregations genuflect,
Black robes brag gilt epaulettes,
Freedom's phantom's gone to heaven,
Gay Pride's chained and in detention,
KGB's chief saint descends
To guide the punks to prison vans
Don't upset His Saintship, ladies
Stick to making love and babies.
Virgin Mary, Mother of God
Be a feminist, we pray thee
Join our protest, Holy Virgin
Banish Putin, Banish Putin.'
Disturbing the destiny of Pussy Riot is a message that Mister Putin is sending to anybody that has the courage to expose and question his acts or even mention him in any other context than the one that gloryfies his name and image. In hope that this case is going to start a public disscusion on state of human rights in Russian society, we are bringing to your eyes and ears, once more, the Pussy Riot's verbal act of freedom.
By Slavica Parlov
