Tag Archives: politics

Pussy Riot Member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova to Spend Rest of Prison Term at Hospital

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Maria Alyokhina (middle) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (right) are serving two-year sentences; Yekaterina Samutsevich (left) had her sentence suspended. Photo via The Journalist.

The Moscow Times Reports:

Jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova will spend the rest of her two-year prison term at a hospital in the Krasnoyarsk region, a news report said Monday.

Tolokonnikova made the request herself after she had been examined at the hospital, which is run by the prison, and the authorities will now decide what job to give her while she is there, Itar-Tass reported.

Tolokonnikova’s lawyer said her client was feeling well and has joined the hospital’s band.

Her sentence is set to run until March 2014, but her lawyer thinks that she could be released earlier under an amnesty planned for this month in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Constitution.

A draft of the amnesty is currently under consideration by the State Duma and is expected to be passed on Wednesday. It could come into effect by the weekend.

More here.

Meanwhile, as I previously reported, the Russian Federation Supreme Court has ordered a review of the Pussy Riot verdicts.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Review of Pussy Riot Verdicts Ordered by Russia’s Supreme Court

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Photo via Rolling Stone.

A review of the guilty sentences for Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been ordered by Russia’s Supreme Court, according to an Agence France-Presse story.

The two women are currently serving two-year sentences in Russian prisons after being convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing an anti-Kremlin protest stunt in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Agence France-Presse reports:

With just three months remaining in their sentence, the Supreme Court ruled that the “hatred” was never proven and their status as young mothers of underage children was ignored.

“The court did not provide any proof that Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were motivated by hatred toward any social group in its verdict,” the Supreme Court said in a decision posted on its official website.

The lower court also failed to review “extenuating circumstances”, namely the fact that Alyokhina’s son is only six years old and Tolokonnikova’s daughter is five, it said.

The court also ignored that the pair had no prior convictions, the “non-violent nature of their illegal actions” and the fact that victims of their actions never wanted to punish them so harshly, the document said.

For more on this story, head here.

Both women are to be released in March 2014. However they could be released sooner do to an amnesty that Russian President Putin has submitted to the Russian parliament, or if the review of their verdicts finds that they are not guilty.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Neil Young To Play Native American Group Benefit Concerts — Fighting Big Oil

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Daryl Hannah (second from left) and Neil Young (center), with Athabascan Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam, left, during a visit to the Chipewyan Prairie First Nation in Janvier in September. Photo via the Edmonton Journal.

Neil Young will perform four “Honor The Treaties” benefit shows in Canada to raise money for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) Legal Defense Fund.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is suing Shell Oil to stop the corporation from undertaking additional oil sands extraction projects the Indian group says will encroach on lands and resources protected by an 1899 treaty.

In September Young spoke at a press conference in Washington D.C. with Senators Harry Reid and Debbie Stabenow.

”I am against the Keystone pipeline in a big way,” Young said. “The fact is, Fort McMurray [Alberta] looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All of the First Nations peoples up there are threatened by this. Their food supply is wasted, their treaties are no good. They have the right to live on the land, like they always did, but there’s no land left that they can live on. All the animals are dying.”

Supporting Young at all four dates is Diana Krall.

The shows will take place in Toronto (Jan. 12), Winnipeg (Jan. 16), Regina (Jan. 17) and Calgary (Jan. 19).

For more on this story, head to the Edmonton Journal or this the Calgary Herald.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Remarkable Letters Between Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek

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Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slavoj Žižek. Photos via The Guardian.

Today The Guardian published a fascinating exchange of letters that took place from January 2013 to mid-July 2013 between imprisoned Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

Žižek begins the exchange:

Dear Nadezhda,

I hope you have been able to organise your life in prison around small rituals that make it tolerable, and that you have time to read. Here are my thoughts on your predicament.

John Jay Chapman, an American political essayist, wrote this about radicals in 1900: “They are really always saying the same thing. They don’t change; everybody else changes. They are accused of the most incompatible crimes, of egoism and a mania for power, indifference to the fate of their cause, fanaticism, triviality, lack of humour, buffoonery and irreverence. But they sound a certain note. Hence the great practical power of persistent radicals. To all appearance, nobody follows them, yet everyone believes them. They hold a tuning-fork and sound A, and everybody knows it really is A, though the time-honoured pitch is G flat.” Isn’t this a good description of the effect of Pussy Riot performances? In spite of all accusations, you sound a certain note. It may appear that people do not follow you, but secretly, they believe you, they know you are telling the truth, or, even more, you are standing for truth.

In her response Tolokonnikova writes:

We are the rebels asking for the storm, and believing that truth is only to be found in an endless search. If the “World Spirit” touches you, do not expect that it will be painless.

Laurie Anderson sang: “Only an expert can deal with the problem.” It would have been nice if Laurie and I could cut these experts down to size and take care of our own problems. Because expert status by no means grants access to the kingdom of absolute truth.

Two years of prison for Pussy Riot is our tribute to a destiny that gave us sharp ears, allowing us to sound the note A when everyone else is used to hearing G flat.

At the right moment, there will always come a miracle in the lives of those who childishly believe in the triumph of truth over lies, of mutual assistance, of those who live according to the economics of the gift.

Nadia

Read all of the letters at The Guardian.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Headed For Siberian Prison

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is being transferred to a prison in the city of Krasnoyarsk, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, in the heart of Siberia, according to her husband, Peter Verzilov.

“It’s 100 percent that it’s Krasnoyarsk region,” Verzilov told Rolling Stone during a phone interview. The information came from a source in Russia’s prison administration, Verzilov said.

Tolokonnikova’s husband believes his wife is headed for Colony 50, near the town of Nizhny Ingash, which is 190 miles from the city of Krasnoyarsk. This prison is in a much more remote location than Penal Colony No 14 in Mordovia, where Tolokonnikova was previously held.

“I think it could be a kind of revenge for what she has done,” Pavel Chikov, a rights defender and a close advisor to Tolokonnikova told Rolling Stone. “It will definitely cause a lot of trouble — it’s definitely not the most convenient place in the Russian Federation.”

Tolokonnikova has not been seen since October 20th when she disappeared from Colony 14.

On Sunday the Russian prison service told Interfax news agency that Tolokonnikova has been moved to another prison. This is the third prison that the Pussy Riot member has been in.

The Federal Penitentiary Service also said that Tolokonnikova’s family would be notified within ten days of her arrival at the new prison, per “regulations.”

Head to Rolling Stone to read their story in full.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Moved To Different Prison

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been moved from Penal Colony No. 14 to another prison, and her defense has no info on which prison she is now incarcerated in, her lawyer Irina Khrunova told RAPSI legal news agency Monday (October 21, 2013).

“Nadya is no longer in the prison colony,” Khrunova told RAPSI. “Investigative procedures were planned for today. I arrived, and the investigator told me that Tolokonnikova was not there; I was in shock. He was told that she has been transferred, but where to, we don’t know.”

In a letter dated Friday, October 18, 2013, before she was moved to her current location, Tolokonnikova said she feared for her life in Penal Colony No. 14, Agence France-Presse reported.

“I confess — yes, I am afraid for my life,” Tolokonnikova wrote in a letter she gave to her former defence lawyer Violetta Volkova. “Because I don’t know what will happen to me tonight. What the butchers of the Mordovia prison service will decide to do to me.”

Scans of the letter were published by the New Times opposition magazine, according to Agence France-Presse.

Volkova visited the Pussy Riot member this past Friday morning (Oct. 18, 2013) when she was on a new hunger strike, and Volkova described her as seriously ill.

“It’s not just that she is not in a condition to hunger strike; she is killing herself with it,” Volkova said. “If you met Nadya on the street now, you would probably never recognise her.”

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Fights For Prisoners’ Rights In Mordovia

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Photo by Denis Bochkarev.
Photo by Denis Bochkarev.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is fronting a new organization, “Mordovlag” (an abbreviation of “Mordovia Camp” in Russian), which will fights for prisoners’ rights in the Mordovia region of Russia, according to Rolling Stone.

Tolokonnikova is currently serving a two year sentence at Penal Colony Bo, 14 in Mordovia.

Mordovlag “will employ experienced lawyers and activists to inspect the region’s prisons, visit prisoners and assist in legal appeals and other procedural issues,” writes Patrick Reevell in Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone also reports: “In the meantime, Tolokonnikova’s move into prison advocacy appears to have already had an effect: Last week, the prison service announced that it would reduce the number of hours worked by inmates and raise their rate of pay. Her hunger strike, and the open letter she released at its outset, have brought public scrutiny onto the camps not seen in decades.”

Read more here.

Meanwhile another member of Pussy Riot, Ekaterina Samutsevich has joined calls for a boycott of next year’s  Sochi Winter Olympic games to protest the country’s recent legislation against gays and lesbians.

“I do not think there is any other way to make our authorities see and understand…,”  Samutsevich told a BBC reporter. “These rights are laid down in UN documents and sadly Russia violates them.”

Read more here.

This is the latest in a series of posts I’ve been doing on Pussy Riot and Tolokonnikova’s situation. To read them all, simply use the search window and search for Pussy Riot.

Source For Banksy’s “Concrete Confessional” Revealed

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banksy overlay
Original photo taken in the ’50s overlaid with Banksy’s “Concrete Confessional.

Check this out. On the Animal blog, we learn:

“Antigrav appears to have tracked down the source image for this stencil [“Concrete Confessioinal”].

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“Concrete Confessional” by Banksy.

The [black and white] photo was shot by famed lensman Berni Schoenfield in the 1950s and was posted as the “Photograph of the Day” by The Telegraph in 2009. According to the paper, it depicts a Jesuit priest at the Martyr’s Shrine in Ontario:

Taken in 1955, near Midland in Ontario, this photograph shows a Jesuit priest hearing confession at a site commemorating the first missionaries in Huron county. They arrived in 1626 intending to convert the Iriquois but were martyred ten years later.