The plight of Pussy Riot has captured the imagination of musicians and creatives across the globe.
Last week three of the Russian Punk Band - Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samucevich - were convicted of hooliganism and jailed for two years. Their crime? Staging a protest against the Russian Orthodox church’s support for President Putin that took the form an impromptu performance at Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.
If these standards existed here, half the people The Drum writes about would also be serving time behind bars. Our Fauxlympics campaign and Chip Shop Awards would have seen many of you locked up.
The sentences were an attack on freedom of expression and an attack on civil society. You can argue that their protest was not in the best of taste. But there is an international consensus that these sentences are disproportionate.
The music industry has rallied around – and a variety of benefit concerts have been held to help raise funds for the Pussy Riot defence. Meanwhile, stars such as Madonna have thrown their weight behind the cause.
But The Drum believes the creative marketing community is uniquely placed to help too. There are so many elements associated with this punk band that add up to some pretty lucrative intellectual property – everything from their name to their trademark brightly coloured balaclavas.
So we would like industry to help show how these opportunities might raise money for their cause – a marketing version of a benefit concert in other words.
We would like you to suggest merchandise options – t-shirt designs, posters, umbrellas, mugs and balaclava slogans. Stuff people would love to wear to show their support for Pussy Riot and their faith in freedom of expression: the bedrock of creativity itself.
The Drum will publish all the work on our website and Facebook page. And the ideas that prove the most popular we will arrange to have made – and sold – with all the proceeds going to the Pussy Riot defence fund.
If you’d like to take part, submit your designs in JPG form to riotappeal@thedrum.com by 7 September.
The Drum's Pussy Riot Appeal has already won the backing of criminal law and human rights specialist Niall McCluskey.
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I find all this very strange. Let's be honest and frank.
If the band were men and called 'Cock Riot', we wouldn't be having this discussion would we?
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Derek. Let's be honest and frank. Or, you can still be Derek, and I'll still be me if you prefer. Whatever your views on feminism, this is still a freedom of speech issue. No person deserves two years in prison for exercising their right to protest (peacefully, I might add). The sentences are completely disproportionate, and there is now a young child who will be without her mother for two years because of this.
I like the idea of this appeal, hopefully it will help towards getting them released.
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I like being frank, it means I can wear women's underwear to client meetings.
I agree with your points on the jail term/child etc.
I should have embellished, I was referencing more to the now political involvement of The Drum and them calling for action rather than their usual spectator stance.
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All The Drum can really do is provide the platform for our readers to help. And from past experience of the Chip Shop Awards and Fauxlympics I am confident their wit, humour and satire can make a difference here - which would be great as it is simply wrong that these women, two of whom are mothers with young children, should be in prison.
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Do you know everything about persons you try make heroes?
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@natkarch26961 That's a claim we cannot make. However, the sentence does seem disproportionate and looks like an attack on freedom of expression.
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@Gordon Young It was hooliganism according Russian Law. It was not political action. They were free making their “political” actions during over 4 years: faking (I apologize – make a “love”) naked and pregnant in museum; naked on floor in corridor of law court with cockroaches; singing on Red Square next Kremlin; in grocery one of them was sticking a frozen chicken in your (I again apologize) pussy; make a huge dick on a bridge.. Do you want your sweethearts or old mum or your crystal child would see it? 90% of Russians don't want. (Sorry for my english. I'm russian)
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@Gordon Young Do you think the freedom speech is the same as swear words the females were “singing” for The God and The Virgin in the Cathedral? Do you know that name of Russian President was covered on video a few day later but had not been “song” in there? Did you read the sentence (all 3 houres) or just comments and recommendations for hysterics against “those awful Russia and Putin”? Would you like have a visit persons like those pussies into your home or in your church while you are praying? When they protested on Red Square nobody from them was arrested. But they wanted a scandal and they went for it. And got it.
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Of course normal protest is okay, but in the Cathedral?? Why in a holy place, would they have protested like that in a mosque?
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Holy place? Yes for the completely insanely deluded.
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It was perfectly OK in a religious establishment. Russia, like many other countries is *supposed* to be founded on secularism, where church and state are separate. However, in Russia, the Orthodox Christian Patriarchy seems to have much leverage in various strands of Government policy.
Much was made in the news about Putin's role in all this. Sure, his influence on the conviction was pretty obvious, and heavy-handed. However, more should have been made about the church's role in influencing the decision.
The church, in whatever country see no problem in imposing their agendas on politics, but when politics encroaches on the church's doorstep, all hell breaks loose.
Freedom of speech should not care if religious people get offended. Their bilious doctrines are an insult to any free-thinking human being's intelligence. If their faith was justifiable and absolute, they'd have no reason feel offended.
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It was perfectly OK in a religious establishment. Russia, like many other countries is *supposed* to be founded on secularism, where church and state are separate. However, in Russia, the Orthodox Christian Patriarchy seems to have much leverage in various strands of Government policy.
Much was made in the news about Putin's role in all this. Sure, his influence on the conviction was pretty obvious, and heavy-handed. However, more should have been made about the church's role in influencing the decision.
The church, in whatever country see no problem in imposing their agendas on politics, but when politics encroaches on the church's doorstep, all hell breaks loose. (Biblical pun intended!)
Freedom of speech should not care if religious people get offended. Their bilious doctrines are an insult to any free-thinking human being's intelligence. If their faith was justifiable and absolute, they'd have no reason feel offended.
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