Putin Punked By Pussy Riot !

The absurd Pussy Riot affair shows a sense that Russia, under the "czar" Vladimir Putin, is sliding back to Soviet times. On 21st February, three young female performers entered into Moscow's Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior, jumped over the rail and performed the opening bars of a punk song. The anti-Putin lyrics lasted for not more than fifty-one seconds during which the women were kneeling, genuflecting, crossing themselves, jumping up and down and, then being intercepted by security guards and led away.

It's not hard to see why religious believers would be shocked and offended, but after being ejected by the cathedral guards,the police came and didn't even open a case. It was only after it appeared on YouTube that it got the attention of the Patriarch Kirill, who watched it, and then rang Putin and the head of the Moscow police - that it became a big deal. That's when they decided that it was some sort of crime. In the press, Patriarch Kirill called it "blasphemous", saying that the church was "under attack" and "the devil has laughed at us." A warrant was issued for "hooliganism'' and two weeks later they were arrested.

''Nothing has been usual about this case," says Nikolai Polozov, one of their lawyers. "There's been a blatant disregard for due process: the refusal of bail; their pretrial treatment has been "barbaric" -- confined for five months in awful conditions and paraded around in handcuffs as though they were dangerous criminals. Very few defendants are imprisoned pre-trial, certainly not ones with young children accused of non-violent crimes." He added, "To put them on trial for hooliganism and threaten them with seven years in jail for what was a political stunt is an act befitting the Dark Ages. Civilised countries do not imprison artists and performers for exercising free speech."

Vengeful bishops pushed hard for the trial, apparently unaware of the immense damage they are doing to the reputation of the Russian Orthodox Church. The last time the Church miscalculated so badly was when it excommunicated Leo Tolstoy in 1901, an act of stupidity that helped push the country towards the political catastrophe of 1917. Their tough stance has troubled many faithful and estranged it from the younger generation it must foster for its future growth. Many are now asking if this trial marks the moment when the Church's dubious rise under President Putin hit its zenith in a country where its dealings with the authorities has been controversial since Soviet times.

Archpriest Vyacheslav Vinnikov called the stance an "indelible disgrace'' that echoed a time when the Church worked closely with the communist Party and helped identify political dissenters to the secret police. "How can the patriarch and priests stand before the alter and leads prayers to the heavens when their words lead to innocent martyrs going to jail?"  But the Pussy Riot trial could not have gone ahead without enthusiastic backing of President Putin, who seems determined to extinguish even the faintest glimmer of protest. That could now drive a permanent wedge between Russia's political leaders and its intelligentsia, just as happened nearly 50 years ago, when a show trial was mounted of the dissident writers Andri Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel.

The Way I See It....the church's problems have entered the daily discourse of society and are likely to stay there for a long time. I believe this makes the church's constant presence on Russian state TV deceptive and its future still heavily dependent on Kremlin backing that could fade if the clergy keeps picking up unpopular causes that concern the younger generation. Many are fearing that cases like Pussy Riot show that Russia is no longer a secular state.

Supposedly showing some mercy, the prosecution changed to a reduced sentence of three years of corrective labour instead of the original seven throwing out the religious hatred charge. But that only happened once the polls showed public opinion and world-wide condemnation shifting and church supporters suddenly being outnumbered by those who viewed Pussy Riot's treatment as too vindictive for the actual crime involved.

Unfortunately, the verdict for the three women was handed down yesterday and the final sentence was for two years. Their lawyers vowed to appeal and one can hope that some reason for probation will prevail. But looking at this situation in a positive light -- it's extraordinary what Pussy Riot have done. How they have taken feminism to one of the most macho countries on Earth (excluding some of the idiot Muslim countries). How they have revealed the fault lines at the heart of the Russian state, the moral bankruptcy of the Putin regime. These women have become the "Truth-tellers" to the Russian nation.