The global human rights people are demanding clemency for three convicted members of the Pussy Riot group. But on the contrary, the Russian authorities are pushing for necks of other band members.
Pussy Riot is an anonymous collective of women activists protesting against Putin’s continued run as Russia
This February, five members of the Pussy Riot managed to perform on the altar of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral of Moscow
Five months later, on August 17, they were jailed for two years by a woman judge of the Khamovnichesky district court. The judge highlighted her sentence speech with phrases like ‘inappropriate clothes for a church’, ‘blasphemous and sacrilegious words hurtful to believers’, ‘insulted the feelings of Orthodox believers’, before announcing the sentence.
The verdict has drawn criticism from the international community and has fueled further protests in Russia
The three members of the Anti-Putin band have already spent five months in prison during the pretrial phase. Their lawyer says they are going to appeal against the decision in the higher court. But given the way the judiciary functions under the State influence in Russia
And this firmness of anti-Putin stand looks a resolute one. Undaunted, Pussy Riot members have released a new anti-Putin video titled ‘Putin lights up the fires’. By doing so, the band is trying to live up to its origin. Putin’s growing authoritarian rule is the root-cause of Pussy Riot formation.
(Try a bit of googling for the English lyrics)
Aided with social media tools and so an outreach to the international community, protesters have been able to maintain their steam so far but now as Putin is firmly in office for the 4th term, he is ready to unleash his ‘Russia means Putin’ run.
He would certainly be emboldened by his oil infrastructure investments over the years including the Baltic pipeline and Euro-5 complaint diesel production that hint of increased oil revenue in the future. Already, Russia ’s oil production has risen to the record level of the post-USSR days and the country is looking to replace Saudi Arabia
Oil money has been the mainstay of the good days that the Russians and the Russian economy saw in Putin’s age. And so when the global economic slowdown dealt a blow to the demands, Russia
If Putin’s oil plans indeed turn out the way he is expecting, it would make life hail for the activists, protesters and the political opposition as an increased income level might work effectively to drive the trifle middle class away from the protests thereby crushing the support base of activists and the political opposition.
Let’s see, who is next in Putin’s line of fire.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
