Pussy Riot, Putin Dictator in Russia, Kirill and Corruption in Church

Romanov family

Russia was freed on 17 July 1918 from the hated, despised, cruel and ignorant Romanov family when they were righteously dispatched by Russian patriots committed to restoring freedom and basic rights to all Russian citizens willing to die to redeem, restore, and revitalize their nation from the corruption of the boyar nobility and the pandering pathetic pedophiliac-riddled Russian Orthodox Church.  A second call for freeom from the chains forged by a retivalized Church and a new dictator who dreamed of becoming Tsar was not heard again until 2012.

Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov (Романов),  sometimes called Nicholas the Bloody due to the abominable anti-Semitic pogroms he personally organized during the time of his reign, was among the most sadistic mercenaries for the Russian Orthodox hierarchy on “divinely inspired” insights by the promiscuous Grigori Rasputin ( Григорий Ефимович Распутин), the secret and continuing lover of Nikolay’s debauched wife Alexandra (King, Greg (1995), The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarina of Russia. London : Aurum Press; Radzinsky, Edvard (2000) [originally in London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000]. Rasputin: The Last Word. translator Judson Rosengrant. St Leonards, New South Wales, Australia: Allen & Unwin) and their four daughters. Alexandra Fyodorovna (a German-Danish princess from Holstein), although devoutly Orthodox, was particularly hated when her husband left her in charge of the Russian army. 

Rasputin and admirers.

Rasputin,  whose decaying corps was unceremoniously removed from its tomb by  patriots of the revolution fighting to oust the hated Romanovs and their courtiers, doused with gasoline and sent hurling towards a burning pyre of garbage for instructing Nicholas to order the butchering of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Protestants, Roman Catholics, and others in the name of religious purity (Tames, Richard (1972). Last of the Tsars: the life and death of Nicholas and Alexandra. London, UK: Pan Books, pp. 56-57).  On August 15, 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church announced the canonization of the family for their “humbleness, patience and meekness“, an ecclesiastical lie that was propagated by a revitalized, rejuvenated and corrupt clergy that demanded greater tithing.  On August 17, 2012, Rasputin’s calloused and cavalier style was repeated by one even more sinister than he: Judge Marina Syrova of Moscow who equally showed no compassion, no comprehension or  understanding of reality but relied only on biased testimony.

Grigori Rasputin and dinner guests

Rasputin was hailed as a living saint when he advised the Tsarina.  After his death and the destruction of his body, the Russian Orthodox Church ignored him. His standing with his flock disappeared.

Fortunately for the poor of Russia, the Russian Orthodox cathedral was destroyed and replaced with a more useful swimming pool for all of Moscow’s citizens (December 5, 1931; watch video).  In 1990, the Russian Orthodox Church removed the pool and rebuilt at enormous cost to Moscow’s poor and dwindling middle class, another ornate and useless cathedral (read:  История гибели Храма Христа Спасителя, взорванного в 1931 году, началась почти за полтора десятилетия до его физического уничтожения с факта, не связанного напрямую со сносом Храма. В 1918 году в сквере возле Храма Христа Спасителя был демонтирован памятник Императору Александру III).

Kirill’s $35,000 watch airbrushed out of photograph

Today the pernicious predatory Patriarch Kirill I comforts himself on his yacht, in his multimillion dollar penthouse in Moscow (he purchased it in 2002, located  on the Nabereznaia with a view overlooking the Church of Christ the Saviour (the apartment is registered to Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundiaev [Kirill’s secular name], “concerning which there is a corresponding entry at the cadastral department” (The New York Times, December 15, 2008, p. 96; he also bought a villa in Switzerland) admiring his fleet of expensive cars (purchases not uncommon among the Russian Orthodox clergy as seen in the case of Archpriest Mikhail Grigoriev of Kazan, a provincial priest) and looking at the time on his $35,000 Breget watch (read here and here) as he preached “blessed are the poor” while scooping up $2 billion for the sale of cigarettes throughout Russia. 

Romanovs canonized

The decision to canonize the widely hated Romanov family, had been anticipated for several weeks, was made behind closed doors by Patriarch Aleksy II and the church’s 150 hierarchs, sitting as the Council of Bishops. This came despite the well known fact that Nicholas was also blamed by many Russians for inept, inflexible and harsh rule that only hastened revolution by the increasing poor and dwindling Middle Class who saw it as a right-wing coup as their savings disappeared, the thought of a pension expelled in favor of greater economic opportunities for the super rich, and the growth of crime among the Russian Orthodox clergy, and its relationship with other Orthodox Christian sects that are under investigation for fraud and real estate crimes.   

Vladimir Putin (new Tsar)

In the forefront of the league of state-and-church blessed gangsters is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Владимир Владимирович Путин, born October 7, 1952), a wife beater (Lyudmila, now 53) and philanderer, who controls everything from the official correspondence of the Russian Orthodox Church to the hated KGB that regularly arrests, imprisons and executes dissenters and those who dare exercise free speech. Democracy became a dead issue in Vladimir’s totalitarian mafia-run state. 

The Berliner Zeitung (Germany) said Vladimir Putin is alleged by his wife, Lyudmila, to have used “domestic violence and to have had numerous sexual affairs.”

As the London Guardian noted, Vladimir’s Kremlin relies on criminals and rewards them with political patronage (as is the case with the “judge” trying Pussy Riot), wire-tapping is a regular daily occurrence (customary in the age of Herbert Hoover and the presidency of George W. Bush who turned the USA into a police state worse than Communist Russia), while top officials collect bribes “like a personal taxation system“. Those who opposed him were murdered, imprisoned and forgotten, or “disappeared” as was the custom under Stalin.

Kirill and Putin discuss taxes

Today’s Stalin is Vladimir Putin. Using the Inquisition of the Russian Orthodox Church, he had Pussy Riot arrested.  Putin’s unusual closeness with the corrupt Patriarch Kirill has been recorded many times, for their conferences were intimate and private with no tape recordings allowed.

The main target today is Pussy Riot and its supporters all whom claim to be Russian Orthodox Christians.  In an effort to escalate Russian concern with Pussy Riot, Putin broadcast on August 16, 2012, that Russia was preparing for a worldwide economic “meltdown” a commonly used ploy to pressure popular opinion. Such a catastrophe would take people’s minds off of current struggles to concentrate on basic living levels—and negate any concern for human or civil rights.

Originally Pussy Riot was supported by approximately 50% of the people.  More than 400,000 Russians have signed an online petition protesting their arrest and detention. The Washington Post condemned, in an editorial, Russia’s heavy hand in the issue of Pussy Riot.  Numerous celebrities called on their supporters to help free the performers. Today that number has dipped to 40% as the Russian Orthodox Church continues to blast supporters and threaten them with eternal damnation will chiming that the poor must give more to comfort the clergy for their mental distress over the incident.

Der Spiegel (Cover; No. 33/2012) in German;August 13, 2012

Among the supporters of the three young women jailed who performed on the altar of Christ the Savior cathedral in Moscow are Paul McCartney, Bjork of Iceland, numerous other performers, and Pyotr Verzilov. Verzilov, 25, is the husband of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, arguably the most photogenic of the three members of the band Pussy Riot who are currently on trial.  As with nearly all trials in Moscow, the charges are farce.  The three women from Pussy riot are accused of “hooliganism” in relation to an impromptu concert they gave in Moscow’s main cathedral.

Dmitry Medvedev

Many people question the origin of the name Pussy Riot.  Pyotr Verzilov told reporters that it was a direct response to a decision by [former President and current Prime Minister] Dmitry Medvedev who announced on September 24, 2011, that he would not to run for reelection as president. That day, according to Verzilov, it became clear that the regime has no interest in change and only knows one direction: more authoritarian control—worse than the Communists in 1919 or Stalin.  Medvedev became a pawn of Putin, and Putin had the unflinching support of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill I and the clergy loyal to his design of reestablishing the Old Empire that was the USSR.

Russian punk band Pussy Riot, which is awaiting the verdict in a trial of its three members on hooliganism

Russia had become as corrupt as the Russian Orthodox Church. For fifteen women, including Nadezhda, it was a wakeup call to do something and plan direct campaigns that would change the thinking of the Russian people and enable the citizens of Russia to see that they were falling back into the slavery of peasants under the despicable Romanov dynasty. Determined to change destiny, the women, now known as Pussy Riot, began making videos. 

‘Pussy Riot’ stage a protest performance in Red Square in Moscow January 2012

Their first videos appeared on the Internet only a few weeks later, shocking many, encouraging many to begin thinking for themselves.  The video (discussed in depth, below) also aided the strong few to realize the imprisonment being created by the government that was directly supported by the Mephistophelean Moscow patriarchy.

Riot Grrrl Style, Fashion and Self-Expression (USA)

The word Pussy was a collective decision. The name is a reference to the Riot grrrl movement that arose in the United States in the early 1990s, based on a concept of feminine strength, not weakness.  Riot grrrl originally started in Washington, D.C.; Olympia, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and the greater Pacific Northwest (Jackson, Buzzy (2005). A bad woman feeling good: blues and the women who sing them (1st ed.). New York, NY: W.W. Norton; on the origin of grrrl, read: Rowe-Finkbeiner, Kristin (2004). The F-Word: Feminism In Jeopardy—Women, Politics and the Future. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press). 

Russian artist Verzilov is detained after storming into a courtroom in Moscow (July 2010)

Verzilov, his wife, and the other members of the band acknowledged that it sounded odd in Russia (it was even less accommodating among Western mainstream media whose rigid control by Rupert Murdoch and the far right movement that was cannibalizing governments in Germany, USA, Canada and the UK had problems with it). Only with the Pussy Riot trials did English and American newspaper print the word “pussy.”

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and daughter Gara

Verzilov, who speaks English well, met his wife when he was a philosophy student. The couple has a four-year-old daughter named Gera. He told reporters: “This is sort of a crazy day. I have to take care of something inside, and then we can talk for 30 minutes. I have an interview with Australian TV after that, but then we’ll have some peace and quiet. We’ll take my car and talk for 40 minutes while we’re stuck in traffic.”  

Vladimir Kolokoltsev

During the interview, Verzilov commented that he was able to visit her the day before.  It was the first time in five months that he had been granted the “privilege” even after repeated requests. A realist, he told reporters that the orders came directly from the former Moscow police chief and current interior minister, Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alexandrovich Kolokoltsev (Колокольцев Владимир Александрович; born May 11, 1961) who made his denial to allow Verzilov to meet with his wife because Kolokoltsev had heard Verzilov during a radio interview.

Maria Alyokhina (age 24)

Kolokoltsev’s unwillingness was heightened when the parents and son of Maria Alyokhina have received death threats both by telephone and online, and he refused to do anything about it. He claimed that the punk prayer was like a “spit in the face” for him personally. In an attempt to redeem himself with Putin (who has asked Russian girls to strip publicly in support of him), Kolokoltsev inaugurated an investigation of Ivan Glukhov, deputy head of the Moscow police’s Investigative Committee, whom Putin then fired over the inefficiency of his department work in January.

Pussy Riot Three

Verzilov expressed concern for his wife and the other women who millions of Russians see as ideal role models.  He, and many others, was amazed at how well they were holding up under harsh prison conditions, especially as they continued to make political speeches in court, exhibiting their courage in the presence of power. 

Pussy Riot supporters who gathered outside the court in Moscow detained by Moscow police (2012)

Verzilov noted that his wife and the other two women are being held in individual cells, in a special unit where they are monitored with video cameras 24 hours a day.  There is one twist to this torrid tale: since the stars of Pussy Riot are Russia’s most famous prisoners, security officials claim that they are worried that something could happen to them, and for that reason they are constantly being harassed in little ways, such as when the guards find private notes they have written, or their beds aren’t made by 9:30 in the morning. The truth is that Pussy Riot has become a symbol of resistance to Putin’s takeover of Russia and transmogrification of the nation into a personal dictatorship.

Supporters of the punk provocateurs Pussy Riot

When Verzilov wrote his wife notes, it was necessary that the attorneys for her passed them on. He was her only window to real life, and he kept her updated on what was occurring in Russia and in the West about the support for her cause.  He also kept her informed about what was happening with their daughter Gara.

Madonna showed support for Pussy Riot at recent Moscow concert

The greatest difficult for Pussy Riot is the support they receive from Madonna whose support Pussy Riot welcomed, but when the modern popular singer visited Moscow during the trial she was condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church and numerous religious followers.  She had written Pussy Riot on her bare back and went on stage in support of the women which made the gynophobic church even more hostile.

Revolt against the boyars in the old Russia – Boris Kustodiev

When she sang “Like a Virgin,” Madonna incurred the wrath of large segments of society and was criticized by the Church.  It gave strength to many women, however, since they know that the Russian people remain stuck in the Middle Ages of a past world of hardship, prelate and baronial rape and carnage that the Russian nobility (Дворянство Dvoryanstvo), the boyars who used rape to control the peasants, regardless of gender, considered their right under their god and condoned by the corrupt Church.

Изтезания на монаси в Соловки (Russian Inquisition)

Pussy Riot has wanted to pit their feminist values and protest against the reality that Russia was stuck in the past. All three want to take Russia from the Middle Ages and the unholy Russian Inquisition that continues to this day, to the modern era.  Their goal, however, was not a goal that the predatory prelate Kirill relished and vocally called out against, forbidding novel ideas and actions, that the Patriarch referred to as “evil times”.  Pussy Riot’s goal was born out of Moscow’s conceptualism and Russian actionism of the 1980s and 1990s.  The tepid Patriarch Kirill said nothing about the “evil” of having girls strip for Putin, but then Kirill has his own “lady friends”.

Russian girls strip for Putin’s campaign (2012)

Pussy Riot was philosophically inspired by classic philosophers of postmodernism, like Jacques Derrida (cp. Derrida, Jacques (1999). O pochtovoĭ otkrytke ot sokrata do freĭda i ne tolko. Minsk, Russia: Sovremennyĭ Literator; it is a study of psychoanalysis and philosophy on social issues).  For Nadezhda Verzilov it was more the radical feminism of Judith Butler (while Nadezhda did not mention a specific title she read, the one that would make the biggest impact on her and Pussy Riot would have to be Precarious life : the powers of mourning and violence. London : Verso, 2006, but I do not know of it being translated into Russia; the book asks why some lives are more valued than others and responds to various US policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for an understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice), noting: “We were very well prepared when it came to theory.”

When Verzilov was asked: “Didn’t your wife expect there to be consequences, such as after the illegal concert on Red Square in January?” he replied:  “Never. Neither during the concert nor the performance in the church did anyone think that anything could happen. They didn’t do anything criminal. Any honest lawyer in Russia will say the same thing. Pussy Riot believed that the worst it could get was a fine of 1,500 rubles, which is about €40 ($50).” Verzilov did not count on the denunciation of Kirill.

Members of a female punk band “Pussy Riot” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (L), Maria Alyokhina (C) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (R), sit inside a glass enclosure (August 8, 2012) AFP Photo / Natalia Kolesnikova

While Patriarch Kirill attempts to portray Pussy Riot as a group of uneducated “hooligans”, the opposite is true.  The girls are not just punk-rockers, but educated as well. Tolokonnikova is studying philosophy at Moscow State University; Alyokhina is studying at the Institute of Journalism and works as a volunteer in the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital. Samutsevich is a student at the progressive Rodchenko School of Multimedia Studies.

What surprised Verzilov and most people was that his wife was not arrested in the church.  All that happened was that security officials told the girls to leave the church. The girls left. The police arrived half an hour later, but they saw no reason to take any action against Pussy Riot.

Only because of the impromptu prayer went viral on the Internet on YouTube did the government decide to severely punish Pussy Riot—not as a group (there were five in the church at the time), but selectively.  What the police saw was not what happened.

The video of Pussy Riot at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow is a cut and paste job: the scenes where the girls play the guitar were obviously not filmed in the Cathedral.  When they reached the cathedral they only managed to get up into the pulpit, take a few steps and, falling on their knees, to make the sign of the cross before they were dragged away by security guards.

The scenes with the guitars were filmed in another cathedral, so the three girls are being held because of a fake video clip. The song was rather mild by any standard.  Psychological and linguistic analysis showed that the song the girls sang in the Cathedral was ‘not an incitement to any unlawful actions, nor was it dictated by hatred or enmity towards any social groups.’ The experts did conclude that the feelings of some religious people might have been offended, but this is not a crime.

Kirill’s personal wealth

The song hinted at the overly close friendship between Church and State: they sang that Patriarch “Kirill believes in Putin, when he’d do better to believe in God.” This is a reference to the Patriarch securing a monopoly on the sale of cigarettes from Putin, which brought to Kirill (the patriarch’s name appears as Vladimir Gundyaev on his passport) a profit in excess of $2 billion—none of which was taxed by Putin.  

Cigarettes Kirill sells

There has also been more than a minor hint of the Patriarch’s links with the FSB (Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации: Federal Security Service that had been previously known as the KGB).  The FSB furnished the cigarettes that Kirill sold (claiming it to be a humanitarian act) even though it was known throughout the former Soviet Union that cigarettes smoking leads to lung cancer.  Kirill ordered that warnings of risks of smoking were to be controlled, and more Russians began to smoke.  Those who support Kirill are invited to lavish banquets.  While the Jesus of the New Testament ate with the poor, Kirill dines with the rich and powerful. Putin is a frequent guest.

Kirill’s banquet

Many Russians see the Patriarch as one who is attempting to restore communism throughout the Old Russian empire, especially in the Ukraine. This has led to numerous protests that were dealt with violently when Kirill visited the Ukraine.  Some have been staged with surprises for the predatory prelate, with at least one woman running toward the unloved and unwelcomed Patriarch Kirill, bare-breasted, and others screaming

Bare-breasted Ukrainian feminist activist protests Kirill’s visit and calls for his death.

obscenities against the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Topless Femen protester attempted to attack the Russian Orthodox Church’s leader in Kiev

This action was followed by numerous other Ukrainian women appearing bare-breasted.  Furious that the Moscow Patriarch would travel to the Ukraine as if it was still a nation subject to Russia, they shouted at the Patriarch that he was no better than a parasite infecting everyone who had the misfortune to come into contact with him, and that Kirill was not a true representative of the church.

Hundreds of opponents of a newly-passed legislation giving the Russian language equal status with Ukrainian battle with police in an attempt to prevent President Viktor Yanukovich from signing it into law; it was signed under pressure of the Church.

Kirill has for some time been  pushing for the restoration of the Russian language that is very unpopular and has provoked numerous riots. The FSB in Moscow is identical in purpose, management, control, and draconic invasions of privacy as is found in the USA Homeland Security branch of government (read here and here and here, watch here; cp. here) and both Homeland Security and the FSB were created by a pseudo-elected leaders who did nothing for the middle class, gave massive tax breaks to the wealthy (read here and here and here), and formed cabals of rich corporations whom they called their friends and argued were people equal to those who worked within the corporate system (read here and here and here). Putin, like Romney dreams of, created a flat 13% tax for everyone, so that the rich paid the same rate as the very poor, and the middle class bottomed out and became a part of the landless proletariat (read here and here) that was endorsed by George W. Bush (Herman Cain wanted to tax the food and medicine of the poor to pay for the tax cuts for the rich).  

Ryan’s tax plan condemned at Racine, Wisconsin

Putin, Bush, and Cain’s proposed tax plan was in the United States House of Representatives repeated by Paul Ryan where he claimed that the people stood behind him.  Not true, as his proposed tax restructuring would hurt seniors and the middle class the most (read here and here and here and here) with Romney disavowing it while on the campaign trail, and his own Wisconsin constituents reacted quickly.

Public opinion was outraged by the phrase ‘Holy shit!’ which was part of the refrain. This is not blasphemy; it simply means that the situation being described is shameful before God. The phrase itself is current youth slang.

The Russian Orthodox Church is directly involved in scandal. The Cathedral’s Council Hall with its VIP dressing rooms can be rented for 450,000 rubles per day ($13,830); the Conference Hall for 100,000 rubles ($3,072).

Ekaterina-Samutsevich and Judge Marina Syrova

Those who were arrested, charged, and tried by one of Moscow’s most corrupt judges (Marina Syrova of the Khamovnichesky District Court who was appointed to the court by Vladimir Putin in 2008 and now has been granted police protection ordered by Putin) known for taking bribes openly, rendering verdicts based on how much she could extort from plaintiffs or defendants, and with no respect for human or civil rights. Judge Marina Syrova is considered to be the most corrupt judge in Russian history.  Russian media, now carried by USA alternative media describe the judge as one without remorse in blindly following the Kremlin line.  She has delighted in sentencing any dissenter from the official Putin party line, and has blasted all human rights groups.  Yet she did not have the power to silence these facts:

• Judge Syrova’s abrasive manner and disregard for the arguments of the defense won her few admirers among Pussy Riot supporters.
• One of the defense lawyers, Nikolai Polozov, said in a caustic message he was hoping that the judge would be guarded by dogs like the Pussy Riot members, who have been accompanied by a guard dog in court.  “I hope they will guard her with special measures, with dogs,” he said on Twitter.
• Court bailiffs during the trial have led a dog — either a German shepherd or a huge Rottweiler depending on the day — behind the women as they leave and enter the courtroom.
• Observers say courts in Russia carefully toe the Kremlin line, and few expect the judge to deliver a not guilty verdict.
• Russian novelist Boris Akunin, who over the past months has become a vocal member of the nascent opposition to Putin, said he would appear outside the Khamovnichesky court on Friday to express solidarity with the punk singers. “This prolonged epic of the absurd is more and more acquiring the trappings of a public obsession,” Akunin wrote in a blog post on Thursday. Akunin said that outside the courtroom he might be joined by some of Russia’s best known actors, directors and musicians who in June called for the release of the young women in an open letter.
• Boris Strugatsky, one of the country’s most acclaimed sci-fi writers, said that by prosecuting the singers the authorities were seeking to sow discord in society. “It’s impossible to describe my disgust,” he said in comments on popular Echo of Moscow radio station. “Who launched this machine of mutual misunderstanding, a ferocious desire to unmask the enemy and wipe him off from the face of the earth, and why? Who needs this?”

Pussy Riot supporters were quick to note a new unHoly Trinity in Russia: Patriarch Kirill, Vladimir Putin, and Judge Syrova.

What became known worldwide was that Nadezhda, Maria and Ekaterina were the chosen sacrificial lambs because they weren’t wearing their masks yet when they entered the church, so their faces were filmed by the security cameras and the authorities knew who the five women were.  Because they entered “unveiled” they were automatically considered suspect.

The arrest and subsequent trial made Pussy Riots heroes to many private citizens and stars to others. For this reason Nadezhda was especially singled out by the Russian Orthodox Church that was even more medieval than the national and local governments. 

The arrest of Pussy Riot caused panic among many, including Nadezhda’s daughter, Gara.  Gara responded firmly because of the incident and her mother’s incarceration.

Gara

Gara tells everyone that Putin had locked her mother in a cage and that “we, father and daughter, had to find a way to get her out.” Verzilov’s daughter draws diagrams showing how we can go about doing this with bulldozers and buses, first by tearing down the prison walls and then by breaking open the cage.  The walls had to be destroyed, as when the French in the eighteenth century stormed the Bastille. Only then would Russia have the opportunity to become a country with independent courts, honest police, democratic elections and a reliable social safety net.

Pyotr predicted that there will be major rallies again in September. The fate of the protest movement also depends on whether or not Putin would impose a prison sentence on Pussy Riot, as nearly every Russian openly admits that Putin is the only person directing things in Russia with Kirill directing him. Pyotr remarked that “It was Putin’s personal decision to lock up the girls.”

Moscow police detail supporter April 19, 2012

Putin once promised to liberate his country from the legacy of the communist dictatorship. Instead, he has guided his autocratic state along a path that is already heading for a repressive regime in which opposition members are arrested indiscriminately and their homes searched by the authorities, a regime where prosecutors shape their indictments to suit political requirements and intimidate vocal opponents through interrogation. 

Judge Marina Syrova

It came as no surprise that the venal and viciously corrupt Judge Marina Syrova ruled Pussy Riot guilty of “hooliganism”.  Ignoring all defense arguments and documents and witness testimony, the craven jurist gave each of the three women a two year prison sentence.  It was a clear sign and lasting emblem of Russia’s intolerance of dissent.  Hearing the verdict read, those in front of the courthouse shouted “down with the police state”. 

As USA Today reported after the expected verdict was read: “Putin has doomed himself to another year and a half of international shame and humiliation,” said Boris Akunin, one of Russia’s most popular authors, who was among the Pussy Riot supporters outside the courthouse. “The whole thing is bad because it’s yet another step toward the escalation of tensions within society. And the government is absolutely to blame.”

Garry Kasparov, opposition leader and international chess champion, being pushed into a police van following the Pussy Riot sentencing.

Chess grand champion and Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov showed up Friday at the sentencing of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, and after being beaten severely, punched in the genitals and spat upon by the Moscow police then spent the next five hours in the custody of the Moscow police, recovering from a severe beating.  The former chess champion said he remembered screaming in agony. “I remember inside the van they threw me to the floor,” he said. “Then they took my right leg, they push the leg to the ceiling. I now have problems with the right side of the back.” Kasparov said when he was in the van, the police officers continued to beat him. He says the only witnesses were other people the police had arrested.  The police said they were not booking him for a crime, but Kasparov noticed that the police had written in their records that he instigated the violence and organized the riot. Unfortunately, there are no brave individuals who will re-enact the day Russia became free from autocratic tyranny on 17 July 1918. A revolution against Putin, Syrova and Kirill (an unholy trinity infecting Moscow and serving only the FSB and strangling justice) is past-due. It must come soon.