A law against the spread of fake news now ensured the conviction of Pussy Riot members.
A Moscow district court sentenced the government-critical performance group Pussy Riot to up to 13 years in prison. The reason for this is the music video for “Mama Don’t Watch TV” (2022) and a live performance in Munich 2024.
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Pussy Riot see themselves as an activist music collective that regularly organizes spontaneous, free and illegal concerts. Your content is clearly directed against the misogynistic, propaganda government under Vladimir Putin. Your mission: uprising, despite the oppression. Members of the collective have now been sentenced to at least 8 years in prison. Co -founder Maria Alyokhina received even 13 years and 15 days in the absence.
These are the charges
The indictment goes back to a protest campaign by the collective in April 2024 in the Munich Pinakothek of Modernity. The Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina, Alina Petrova and Anastasia “Tabo” Pletner condemned the Russian invasion war in their performance on site and titled Wladimir Putin as war criminals. Then Pletner stood on a table that a portrait of the Russian autocrat was leaned, pulled her black mini dress up and urinated Putin’s image. This campaign, as well as the music video for the anti-war song “Mama Don’t Watch TV”, ensured that the group was demonstrated.
The statement of the collective under the music video for “Mama Don’t Watch TV” reads: “On February 24, 2022, Russia started a large -scale military attack on Ukraine. Russian bombs and rockets destroyed Ukrainian houses, schools, hospitals, devastated cities and destroyed life”. The chorus of the song is based on the words of a captured Russian conscript who said in a telephone conversation with his mother: “Mama, there are no Nazis here, don’t look away”. Pussy Riot added the statement to her criticism of the Russian propaganda. “We believe that Putin’s regime is a terrorist regime and that Putin himself, his officials, generals and propagandists are war criminals,” says youtube.
Government criticism and propaganda: Russia’s law against fake news
“The Russian propaganda poisoned people’s hearts every day with hate,” write the government critics. Statements like this have been punishable in Russia since 2022. As the Russian magazine “Mediazona” reports, the protest and the music video of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code violate. This “Law against fake news“Was added to Ukraine just one week after the Russian attack war. The new law provides for a prison sentence of up to 15 years. The Russian government is responsible for what is considered to be a false information.
Government critics: In the inside, however, in Russia are fundamentally not welcome, as the most prominent case, showed the killing of the opposition politician Alexei Nawalny. Now the activists from Pussy Riot were found again in front of the Moscow court. In his argument, the Russian prosecutor Vladimir NagaTsev postulated that Maria Alyokhina, for example, represented “left -wing political views”. Furthermore, the group “The ruling government” in Russia rejects. Since this statement in the authoritarian regime of Russia is sufficient to be prosecuted, the court sentenced Alyokhina to 13 years and 15 days in prison. Pletner received 11 years. Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Alina Petrova were each sentenced to eight years in prison.
Pussy Riot’s history
The Pussy Riot group is not unknown for its expressive methods of symbolic protest against Vladimir Putin and the Russian propaganda policy.
As early as 2012, the collective hit the headlines internationally after its members in Moscow were on trial because of a protest in the Christ-Roser-Cathedral. Nadeschda Tolokonnikowa, Maria Aljochina and Jekaterina Samuzewitsch were arrested for their church-critical “punk prayer”. In August of the same year, they received their judgment two years in prison. Pussy Riot also attracted attention in the following years: in 2018, for example, they stormed the field in the final game of the World Cup in Moscow. This protest also followed a arrest of the activists.
The conviction of Pussy Riot on September 15 is part of the chain of attempts at Oppression by the Russian government. At the beginning of this year, a new law was adopted again in Russia. After that, the search for as a “extremist” content is punishable. This included several videos by Pussy Riot, who, according to “Mediazona”, are already on the list of the Ministry of Justice.