In Putin’s Russia, “hooliganism” is a 24-month sentence. And while the members of Pussy Riot may be self-professed hooligans, they don’t believe themselves to be criminals. So will two previously incarcerated Pussy Riot members, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, be able to get compensation from the Russian Government, despite a lack of support from the Russian public?
According to The Guardian, the two Pussy Riot members who were given amnesty in December after serving 21 months in prison (three months before their scheduled release date) are demanding €120,000 each in compensation, plus €10,000 in court fees from the Russian government. Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were arrested back in March 2012, after they and three other band members entered Moscow’s mammoth Christ the Saviour Cathedral and performed a song calling on the Virgin Mary to get President Vladimir Putin out of office. Both band members are suing on the grounds that the investigation and prosecution violated internationally accepted standards for civil rights.
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are suing through the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that their detention and trial violated four of ECHR’s articles, those which prohibit torture, ensure freedom of expression, allow for liberty and security, and permit a fair trial. Russia ratified the European Convention of Human Rights in 1998, and thus has agreed to uphold these standards for civil rights.
Still, while the arrest of both members contradicts the West’s dogma of free speech, and more specifically, ECHR’s rules, the Russian populace agrees that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova deserve punishment. From a poll back in 2012, 86 percent of Russians believe that both women should be punished through fines or through forced labor.
Still, despite Russian objections, Pavel Chikov, the head of the human rights legal group Agora and the lawyer for these two women, said in a statement to The Guardian that he believes they will win under the ECHR’s jurisdiction. If this is the case, it will demonstrate yet another incremental buildup of tensions between Russia and the West on the grounds of human rights.
In other news, this century-old pissing contest has no end.
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