Pussy Riot in the heart of Moscow splits Russia

A punk girl band Pussy Riot produced quite a scandal in Russia with their performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Some people believe that the girls must be punished accordingly (morally and legally). Others say that the Church must show mercy on the girls. In the meantime, the "rioters" showed their true colors.

Lyudmila Alekseeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, has recently urged the Russian Orthodox Church not to take a tough position against the members of Pussy Riot punk band.

"I don't like what the girls from Pussy Riot did. I agree that they shouldn't have invaded the church. However, the punishment is supposed to be adequate. They should be judged in accordance with the law - simple as that. I am concerned that our court may punish those girls strictly," Alekseeva told Interfax.

It appears that Mrs. Alekseeva follows the definition of democracy formulated by Nikolai Berdaev, a Russian religious and political philosopher. According to him, democracy remains indifferent to good and evil. Democracy is tolerant since it is indifferent, because it lost its faith in truth - it is incapable of choosing truth. Democracy is skeptical, it appears during a skeptical century, a century of faithlessness, when nations lose solid criteria of truth. Democracy is extreme relativism, it is a rejection of everything that is absolute, the philosopher believed.

Common people believe that the punk girls should be publicly flogged. This is a purely emotional statement, which should be taken seriously, of course.

Five members of Pussy Riot punk band conducted a political action at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Feb. 21. They turned music on, put on masks and started dancing and singing. Click here to see the video on YouTube. The girls claimed that it was a punk prayer for Putin's riddance. The young women performed a rap song with the use of dirty language near the altar. In the song, they called upon Virgin Mary to "become a feminist" and to relieve the country from Putin. Law-enforcement agencies filed a criminal case in accordance with Part 2 of Article 213 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation, "Misconduct." The article stipulates an imprisonment up to seven years.

The lawyer of the girl band, Violetta Volkova, was trying to convince the general public that the law-enforcement agencies had absolutely no grounds for filing a criminal case in connection with the performance of the punk band in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Afterwards, liberal activists showed up saying that one should not punish the women, who set themselves up as "the rioting female genitalia." They particularly said that some of the band members had children, so a strict punishment would ruin children's lives.

One of the "rioters," Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, has a four-year-old daughter indeed. However, the woman was one of the participants of the notorious action conducted on February 29, 2008 at Moscow's Biological Museum. A group of people representing Voina (War) Art Group, arranged a sex orgy in the museum. Tolokonnikova was having public sex in the museum being nine months pregnant. The infamous photos of the action can still be found in the Russian Internet. She gave birth to her baby four days after the action.

The champions of the "mild" punishment admit that Pussy Riot committed an act of hooliganism. However, they believe that the women should not be punished for what they did. Dura lex sed lex. The law is harsh, but it is the law.

Igor Bukker

Pravda.Ru

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