Pussy Riot – or what is (religious) freedom to you?

For months and months the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot has dominated the news in various ways. Pussy Riot is an all-female band based in Moscow. The members all wear balaclavas when they are performing, because they are protesting against the Kremlin and against the Putin-led government and were and are afraid of the police arresting them. On March 4^th, it has happened. The group performed, on February 21^st early in the morning, in the Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow, Christ the Savior, and three members were subsequently arrested. Maria Alyokhina,24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova,22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich,29, spent the last seven and a half month in a prison in Moscow being tried for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. Yekaterina Samutsevich was released on appeal, while her two band mates were convicted and sentenced to two years of prison camp respectively. Putin claims that the sentencing was not politically motivated and that he had no voice in the sentencing process. He even goes so far as to claim that he had no knowledge of the group before the video shoot in the Cathedral. This claim seems hardly to be believable. Putin normally knows pretty well what is going on in his country and especially in Moscow and most especially if it involves an entire group of young people, most of them in their twenties and maybe thirties, who are consistently protesting against the government. Moscow claims that the problem with Pussy Riot is not their protest against the government, but the fact that they had voiced such protest in a church, and especially in an Orthodox Cathedral. This behavior, not only protesting in a Cathedral, but naming the song a “Punk Prayer” and performing in front of the altar, has allegedly upset many believers and because of that they had to be punished. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill is a great supporter of Putin and the one who assumes the role of the victim in court. Since I do not believe for a moment that the sentencing was not politically motivated, what I find interesting is the discussion that is going on across Europe, or so it seems, about right and wrong and religious feelings in the case of Pussy Riot. Moscow claims that Russia is a free country and that everyone is allowed to voice their opinion. It is interesting though, that the group decided from the very beginning to perform anonymous, without saying their names or showing their faces. It is also interesting that all of a sudden the Church plays such a significant role again in Russia. Contrary to my initial belief, many Russians seem to endorse the sentencing and therefore also seem to endorse the growing role of the Church in Russia. The overwhelming belief seems to be that the two women, young mothers with small children, deserved what they got and that others should act as a warning that protest involving the Church is not tolerated. Church officials in other countries, one of these being Germany, also said that the women deserved their sentencing because protest in a Church was not allowed and clearly against the law. Interesting! The protests that lead to the end of the DDR were started in a Church and were held and endorsed by ordained priests. Luther, the great protestant reformer, has voiced his criticism of the Church while he was a member, a priest, and a Catholic and during the Second World War courageous priests spoke up against Hitler, in Church, during service and in front of the altar. What is so different about these women? The fact that they are women? The fact that they are young? Or the simple fact that they are very courageous and believe in their cause? How much is freedom of speech worth today and since when does it matter where I enact that freedom of speech?

Further reading:

Article in the independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-if-pussy-riot-had-not-broken-the-law-they-would-be-at-home-doing-their-housework-8227325.html