Monday, 30 December 2013

Pussy Riot and their rightful freedom

Pussy Riot in their memorable balaclava's 

I honestly smiled and let out a small squeal (something I seem to do a lot now) when I found out that both remaining members of Pussy Riot had been freed recently. A few months back I watched a BBC documentary on Pussy Riot and felt extremely angry whilst watching it. I also felt quite confused as I thought that what they did wasn't that bad. But I'm not religious so I guess I wouldn't have anyway.
I'm sure that most people know who Pussy Riot are and what they did but here is a very brief summary: they were/are a feminist punk group from Russia who protested and performed their song "Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!" against the President ,Vladimir Putin, in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Three of the members were arrested on March 3rd 2012 but one was released a week later. Since then, the two remaining members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, have faced various trials whilst their families and other members of Pussy Riot have protested for their freedom.



Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Left to Right)
People who were oblivious to Pussy Riot (before reading this) may have missed out the fact that they were a band. They made protest songs and sung them in various places and of course, one of these shows led to arrest. I'm not entirely sure what my views on these songs are because I am not a big 'punk' fan and their songs are in Russian so I have absolutely no idea what they're saying.
It's lovely to hear that whilst they were in prison, people around the world were protesting for them and holding meet ups and spreading the word. A song was made called 'Free Pussy Riot' which thankfully isn't in Russian and it shows many people supporting them. There's a clip of The Hives showing their support which I think is pretty cool of them.
Of course not everyone is going to agree with what Pussy Riot did and people who aren't feminists won't find them to be good people but I don't think that they should let it slip their minds about the courage that these women used to get their cause across.
I now feel as though I've lost a small sense of my purpose as it's irrelevant to tweet #FREEPUSSYRIOT constantly or to share a dozen links of the latest Pussy Riot news or to blab on about how angry I am. Although, I would never put doing these things above their freedom. I'm just happy that Putin has had some sense to let them go.
After a few minutes of thought, I've created a new hashtag which hopefully catches on.

#LONGLIVEPUSSYRIOT


- Amy 

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