by WW4 More than 500 residents in the campesino community of Tumpa in Yungay province of Peru’s central Andean region of Áncash, began blocking roads leading to the local operations of the Mina California company Aug. 6, declaring an open-ended paro (civil strike) to demand a halt to the mine’s pollution of local waters.
The mine is located near Nevado Huascarán, Peru’s highest mountain, and the national park of the same name, which forms the headwaters of several of Peru’s major rivers. (Servindi, Aug. 6) Continue reading “Peru: The Battle for Pachamama”
Three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot said Vladimir Putin’s Russia was the one on trial as they delivered closing arguments on Wednesday in a case seen as a key test of the powerful president’s desire to crackdown on dissent.
“This is a trial of the whole government system of Russia, which so likes to show its harshness toward the individual, its indifference to his honour and dignity,” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, one of the trio on trial said in an impassioned statement. “If this political system throws itself against three girls … it shows this political system is afraid of truth.”
The judge set 17 August as the day she would deliver a verdict against the women, charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred following an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral.
Prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence, arguing that the women sought to insult all of Russian
Pussy Riot members, from left, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
Orthodoxy and denying they were carrying out a political protest.
Tolokonnikova called the charges against them a “political order for repression” and denounced Putin’s “totalitarian-authoritarian system”, insisting Pussy Riot were an example of “opposition art”.
“Even though we are behind bars, we are freer than those people,” she said, looking at the prosecution from inside the glass cage where she and her two bandmates, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, have spent the nine-day trial. “We can say what we want, while they can only say what political censorship allows.
“Maybe they think it wouldn’t be wrong to try us for speaking against Putin and his system, but they can’t say that because it’s been forbidden,” she said, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the revolutionary words “No Pasaran”.
Couching their case in the long plight of political prisoners in the country, the three women urged Russians to reject Putin’s system and embrace freedom.
Alyokhina, 24, compared the trial to the Soviet Union’s persecution of Joseph Brodsky, when the young poet was charged with being a “social parasite”, becoming a global cause celebre that highlighted the government’s farcical control over culture.
“We are not guilty – the whole world is talking about it,” Alyokhina said, hours after Madonna became the latest, and biggest, star to come to the women’s defence.
“I am not scared of you,” Alyokhina told the court. “I’m not scared of lies and fiction, or the badly formed deception that is the verdict of this so-called court. Because my words will live, thanks to openness.
“When thousands of people will read and watch this, this freedom will grow with every caring person who listens to us in this country.”
Lawyers for Pussy Riot have been expecting a guilty verdict and three-year sentence, but said that was called into question following the judge’s delay in issuing her decision. Lawyer Nikolai Polozov said growing international attention, including recent messages of support from the likes of Madonna and Yoko Ono, had had their effect. “To take a quick decision under such pressure is very dangerous for the authorities, so they’ve taken a time out,” he told the Guardian. “No matter what the verdict is, we have won,” he added.
Each woman ended her closing statement to loud applause from the Russian journalists sitting in the courtroom.
Yekaterina Samutsevich is seen here being escorted into court Russian prosecutors have asked for three years’ in prison for three women musicians accused of inciting religious hatred during a protest in a cathedral. The three members of the punk band Pussy Riot played a song attacking Russian leader Vladimir Putin in front of an altar […]
The Free Pussy riot campaign has gone global, hitting at the heart of oppression, semi slavery and open violence against women, in the sexist macho State and the medieval inquisitorial evil church. update https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/ God-is-punishing-jailed-pussy-riot-mothers-says-patriarch Аction […]
The trial continues of 3 women from the punk band Pussy Riot. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Mariya Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were taken into custody in February after singing a protest song against Putin in Moscow. They have spent already 5 months without bail for nothing more than playing a song in a church without permission. Their […]
Trial Update. Tuesday. Witnesses were called who swore they were outraged by Pussyriot playing in a church…. God is judging Pussy Riot, says Russian church leader.
This Aug. 5 marks 73 years from the shooting of the 13 Roses, young people, mostly Socialists , who were convicted of supporting the bombing deaths in General Isaac Gabaldon in July 29, 1939. The case also included two other women, Antonia Torres and Julia Vellisca, andanother 53 men, accused of committing criminal acts for having belonged to the JSU , the PCE or the UGT union during the Republic.
All thes people died that morning shot against the walls of the cemetery in Madrid. The Council of War, held barely 48 hours earlier, sentenced to the maximum penalty for military rebellion military had no time to seek clemency Of the 13 women, seven of them were minors.
These were a few of tens of thousands illegally executed after the fascist military takeover.We remember especially these 13 women and girls who died together, but as representatives of all the rest, whose deaths have never been recognized or anyone brought to justice to this day, due to the continuing fascist stranglehold on the Spanish justice system. Only last year a top judge Garzon was blatantly barred from office for trying to bring cases to the courts
I swear to crush and sink whatever gets in our way, “said the dictator in his speeches. To date, unfortunately, we know that they fulfilled their threats … of the 13 women who died that morning, seven were children.
Barrero Carmen Aguado, Martina Garcia Barroso, Blanca Vazquez Brissac, Pilar Ibañez Well, Julia Conesa Conesa, Adelina García Casillas, Elena Gil Olaya, Virtues González García, Ana Lopez Gallego, Laffite Joaquina Lopez, Denise Manzanero Salas, Victoria Muñoz García and Luisa Rodriguez de la Fuente. …Dressmakers, pianists, secretaries, advocates, Democrats, women … shot.
Antonia Torres was also convicted, but her sentence was completed in February 1940, shot in the same walls as their peers. Julia Vellisca had better luck, she spent six years in jail and the sentence was commuted.
This year, in which the anniversary coincides with the abolition of social, labor and political rights gained over the last thirty, we see reappearing the black hand of Franco, the fascists who blatantly try to forget the activists of the democratic history of our country and continue the denial of all rights to the victims of the dictatorship and their families.
Recognize those brave young people like the members of the JSU, defended democratic ideals Republican representing the state at the time, against fascism and barbarism to which obeyed the coup which led to a general war in Spain, is a must for our country’s democratic health.
The event this year, which is, as always, be held by the wall of execution is the most unitary ever, being attended, in addition to family and friends, by representatives of the Young Socialists and Communists, the PCE, the Thirteen Roses Foundation, the United Left and memorialists organizations like Forum for Memory, The Commune, The Seville Lane Width or Sunday Malagón Foundation.
The trial continues of 3 women from the punk band Pussy Riot.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Mariya Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were taken into custody in February after singing a protest song against Putin in Moscow.
They have spent already 5 months without bail for nothing more than playing a song in a church without permission. Their detention is seen as a direct revenge against the lively anti Putin movement that followed disputed elections.
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Corrupt Church leaders called for heavy sentences, then blamed foreign infiltrators, then claimed God is judging Pussy Riot
Church leaders foaming at the mouth
Corrupt Church officials linked directly to Vladimir Putin have demanded 7 year sentences for Blasphemy and indulged openly in anti women tirades and sexist language. They described Putin as a ‘Gift from God’ and dubbed the jailings as ‘God’s Judgement’.
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Defendants ill after sleep deprivation torture
Medics were called when the women said they felt unwell on the third day of the trial on Wednesday, the court said.
The defendants say they are being deprived of sleep and are poorly fed, according to a defence lawyer.
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Singers and Artists support PussyRiot
Madonna ,Sting, Peter Gabriel ,Franz Ferdinand and Alex Kapranos have supported Pussy Riot
Comunicado del núcleo de militantes de Los Alternativos – Alternativa Roja y Verde en La Mancha… 27 de Julio de 2012
La crisis no sólo continúa, sino que se agrava, se hace cada día peor. Y no hay salida desde el capitalismo, porque este sistema está en crisis terminal. Sólo hay que ver cómo sus gobiernos (todos, los de ahora y los de antes) no saben qué hacer; cómo mienten cada día (desde hace años, ellos y sus medios de desinformación) diciendo que en unos meses o años veremos cómo cambia el ciclo económico. Pero lo único que hemos visto, vemos y veremos es cómo se hunden nuestras condiciones de vida, porque las consecuencias las pagamos la inmensa mayoría. Se deterioran nuestras vidas y perdemos las conquistas sociales que tanto tiempo y tantas luchas nos costaron. Y que hemos pagado con nuestro trabajo y nuestros impuestos, porque el poder no nos ha regalado nada.
The American Friends Service Committee has put out a new edition of the vital publication Survivors Manual: Surviving in Solitary – A Manual Written By and For People Living in Control Units. The volume is a collection of letters, stories, poetry, and practical advice on surviving solitary confinement in prisons. AFSC released the following announcement last week:
Solitary confinement, characterized by 23-hour a day lockout with minimal exercise and lack of human contact, affects an estimated 100,000 prisoners in federal and state prisons in almost every state. Continue reading “free Survivors Manual for 100,000 in US solitary”
The Free 