Gulag

In case you missed it, two members of the Russian punk protest group, Pussy Riot, have been sentenced to hard labor.  Via the Guardian:

Two members of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot have been sent to remote prison camps to serve their sentences, the group has said. 

Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women's prison camp in Perm, a Siberian region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union's harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons. 

"These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices," the band said via its Twitter account on Monday. 

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing an anti-Putin "punk anthem" in a Moscow cathedral in February. They argued that their conviction was part of a growing crackdown on free speech and political activism in Russia. 

They are expected to serve the rest of their sentences, which end in March 2014, in the camps, where conditions are reportedly dire.

Punk lives in Russia

Yet another reminder, punk rock is alive and well (and still dangerous) in certain parts of the world.

MOSCOW — In a sign of Russian authorities’ determination to clamp down on dissent, a court extended for six months on Friday the detention of three punk rockers who had staged a protest performance in a cathedral. 

The three young women were among a group of five mask-wearing singers known as Pussy Riot who took to the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in February and chanted what they described as a punk prayer. In it, they called on divine intervention to drive then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin from office two weeks before his election as president. 

The women — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 — were arrested shortly afterward. In a preliminary hearing Friday, prosecutors said they needed more time to investigate and asked for an extension until January. By then the women will have been behind bars for a total of 10 months, accused of blasphemy and offending Orthodox believers. They are being held on hooliganism charges, which can bring up to seven years in jail.

Last December, concert-goers at a punk show in Indonesia were arrested and forced to undergo "re-education."

VICE has a nice interview up with Pussy Riot, which describes itself as a "militant, punk-feminist, street band."  Here's a video of them performing on the roof of a building, facing a detention center housing political dissidents.

UPDATE: Gawker has a nice piece up detailing Pussy Riot and their legal predicament: "The Know-Nothing's Guide to Pussy Riot, the Realest Punks Around."

UPDATE 2: Russian authorities are seeking a penalty of three years against the band.

Because some people don't want warts

I am sometimes surprised by what doesn't make the news.

According to the good people at Feministe, Abstinence-only sex education funding has been cut.

Score one for the sane.

Fundies and Feminists

So, let's just admit it: the Right hates women almost as much as it hates people who have 'uncomplimentary' sex. So there's nothing really too alarming about the definition of feminism offered by righty Mike Adams, apart from its forthrightness:

"Feminism is a minority social movement, whose members murder innocent children in order to obtain sexual gratification."

A great blog, Feministe, has a link to the original article, as well as some colorful commentary on the candor of this and other comments made this week by the likes of Bill O'Reilly.