Pussy Riot Olympia Releases Statement of Intent

According to recent news reports the Pussy Riot trial begins tomorrow

Please Take Action by signing this advocacy letter via Amnesty International and contacting yr local Russian Embassy and media outlets

Here is a Statement of Intent posted by Pussy Riot Olympia about their recent solidarity action that was captured on video:

Pussy Riot has to keep on expanding. That's one of the reasons we choose to always wear balaclavas—new members can join the bunch and it does not really matter who takes part in the next act—there can be three of us or eight, like in our last gig on the Red Square, or even 15. Pussy Riot is a pulsating and growing body. Do you know anyone who wants to come to Moscow, play illegal concerts, and help us fight Putin and Russian chauvinists? Or maybe they could start their own local Pussy Riot, if Russia is too cold and too far.

- Garadzha, Pussy Riot

As with every story there is how we want the world to know the story and then what really happened. In this story you will get both because there are many people telling it. Some of the members of Pussy Riot Olympia were trying to show support for Pussy Riot Moscow by carrying on what we saw them actually doing, disrupting public space to create dialogue about relevant political and cultural issues.

We looked at what resources we had and made a plan. Some of us knew we could get the controls of the projection booth and lights at a local cinema. We disrupted a matinee screening (a poorly attended screening as you can see in the video) by rigging the fire shutter on the projector to stop functioning such that when we shut off the projector the image burned on screen. (at a planned moment during the manipulative film) Then we hit the lights, rushed the stage, switched over to the cinema's video projector and sound system to play our song and slide show, gave it all we had for two minutes and left the small audience to wonder what happened. We had a few cameras so we filmed the scenes leading up to and just after the action. Then some of us went up to the state capitol building and took over the steps for an impromptu demo that lasted about three minutes. At the end of the video you can see a state patrolman walking out of the building with his lunchbox trying his best to ignore the weird spectacle happening…and probably hoping he didn't get called back to work to diffuse the situation.

In the cinema action we are also deliberately protesting the random mass killing that happened recently in a cinema in the US. These killings have become increasingly regular and are fed by the culture of violence and hate that is the norm in consumerist  feeding frenzies and especially the cinema. We love the cinema. Free the Cinema!

Free Pussy Riot! Start yr own Pussy Riot chapter now.

We have nothing to worry about, because if the repressive Putinist police crooks throw one of us in prison, five, ten fifteen or more girls will put on colorful balaclavas and continue the fight against their symbols of power.

-Kot, Pussy Riot