In my view, religious people can not accept use of churches
as stages for political protest, but at the same time they
do not want the girls - Nadia, Katya and Masha - be in prison.
Both things are unacceptable.
I hope it is clear that it is improper to make acts of political
protest, especially with dirty insults, not only in churches,
but also, for example, in kindergartens, nursing homes or
hospices. It is a pity that it took the girls almost six months
to apologise for this before the Orthodox congregation.
Any religion - Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and
other religions, freedom of conscience and all the feelings
associated with faith - must be inviolable.
Equally, the right to freedom of speech and expression of
peaceful political protest should be respected. The political
protest by Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina
Samutsevich has in fact a very serious grounds. It is a protest
against election fraud conducted so that to usurp power, against
censorship in the media, lies and corruption, hypocrisy and
injustice... The action by Pussy Riot was meant to be shocking
so that to draw attention to a peaceful, non-violent protest.
This performance was deliberately bold as of its form and
at the same time extremely inappropriate as of its place,
it served a warning to the authorities and the society that
something was wrong in the country
Organizing the lawsuit in the form that we have the misfortune
to watch, the authorities are aiming at intimidation.
This is not good for the country, and it is harmful to the
Church. Intimidation is not the solution. Perhaps fear may
drive the protest depthward for some time, but it will not
disappear, and at some circumstances it will come to the surface
in a much more radical forms that are more dangerous for the
society. This may be compared with a fire in the peat fields
which goes only depthwards when they are trying to put it
out not correctly, and at hot weather it comes powerfully
to the surface as even a greater fire.
From the legal point of view, the court should have determined
whether the girls action had caused considerable harm to
the society and whether their action had displayed the signs
of public danger in the sense of a criminal law, and base
their conclusions not on manipulative reasons.
Besides it should be noted that what they were chanting was
within the frameworks of a usual protest rhetorics, however,
there was a significant problem in where and in what manner
it was done. In my opinion, the long term of imprisonment
of the girls, forcing the atmosphere of unforgiveness and
vengeance does much more harm to the Russian society than
their outrage in the temple.
It's obvious that the punitive sentence will contain disrespect
to a large part of the society and promote political and religious
enmity and hatred in Russia.
I hope that a higher court will cancel the wrong verdict
and the girls will be free. This would correspond to the interests
of the country and the goals of the Church. This will be truly
Christian.
See also:
Human
rights
Yabloko
condemns controversial Pussy Riot Trial. LI News Bulletin,
Issue 294, August 2, 2012
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