Punk provocateurs release statement alongside new track "Elections" attacking corruption, censorship and erosion of democracy in Russia
Nadia Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot: ‘We’re not going to obey during this term.’ Photograph: Christian Palma/AP
Original in "The Guardian"
by Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Russian political punk group Pussy Riot have released a new song, Elections, to protest against “18 years of Putin’s power” as Russians headed to the polls on Sunday.
The vote saw Vladimir Putin receive 76% of the vote, ensuring him another six years in power as president. Ahead of the vote, Pussy Riot sarcastically wrote, “Guess who’ll win?” on their Facebook page. Alexei Navalny, his main opposition opponent, was banned from the race in December by the country’s central electoral commission.
Original in "The Guardian"
by Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The harsh hip-hop track features lyrics such as “six years we’re gonna fight, fight / We’re not gonna obey during this term”. In a statement alongside the release, the band wrote:
What 18 years of Putin’s power has brought to us? Arrests, poisonings, tortures, murders of political activists. Institutional corruption which is HUGE. Total erosion of democratic institutions. Giant economic inequality. Worsening of prison conditions. Environmental catastrophe in lots of industrial regions of Russia. Censorship everywhere – in media, in education, in internet, in people’s heads. Self-censorship, caused by fear. You should not be deceived, this event on 18th of March is not elections. Falsifications, eliminations of political opponents, Kremlin-controlled media leave no chance to anybody except Putin.
The vote saw Vladimir Putin receive 76% of the vote, ensuring him another six years in power as president. Ahead of the vote, Pussy Riot sarcastically wrote, “Guess who’ll win?” on their Facebook page. Alexei Navalny, his main opposition opponent, was banned from the race in December by the country’s central electoral commission.
The video for Elections features paintings by Navalny’s brother Oleg, currently serving a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence after being convicted of stealing money from two Russian companies – a ruling described by the European Court of Human Rights as “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”. Pussy Riot described him as a political prisoner.
Pussy Riot, who have a rotating cast of musicians and artists, have long been outspoken against Putin and Russian elites. Members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova served 21-month jail terms after an anti-Putin performance in 2012 at the altar of Moscow’s largest cathedral. Alyokhina was detained in August 2017 in the Siberian city of Yakutsk following a protest she made with another Pussy Riot member against the imprisonment of Ukranian film-maker Oleg Sentsov. The band staged another demonstration against Sentsov’s imprisonment by storming Trump Tower in New York last October, and have protested against Donald Trump in their songs Make America Great Again and Police State.
The band have made other high-profile protests in Red Square, and at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where they were attacked with whips and tear gas by Cossack militia working as security at the games.
RELATED ARTICLE FROM ThisSmallPlanet.com:
Cool, New Song: Pussy Riot "Elections/Выборы" Brutal Take On War Criminal Putin's Fake Election Today
RELATED ARTICLE FROM ThisSmallPlanet.com:
Cool, New Song: Pussy Riot "Elections/Выборы" Brutal Take On War Criminal Putin's Fake Election Today
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