WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

150 route de Ferney
P.O. Box 2100
1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel.: (+41 22) 791 6111
Fax: (+41 22) 791 0361

Dear members of the World Council of Churches,

We urge you to support two young women Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Mariya Alekhina, who, in violation of Russian law, have been kept in custody in Moscow for more than seven months now. On August 17 they and the third activist Ekaterina Samutsevich, whose sentence was later suspended, were sentenced to two years in a penal colony, where relations are very cruel, sometimes escalating into physical violence. Pussy Riot defense lawyers foresee that the women’s lives may be in danger there.

The three are members of a protest Pussy Riot punk band, which performed a punk-prayer at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on 21 February, 2012. The group prayed to the Mother of God to drive Putin from the Kremlin, urged the Patriarch to believe in God, and not in Putin, and protested against state violence. Apparently, President Putin interpreted this action as personal offense, and, as in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovski, pursues a vendetta against the young women, who have little children. The aggressive campaign, unleashed by the church in mass media and ROC parishes, accuse the group of blasphemy, fomenting religious hatred, anti-church activity and extremism, while the state administration tends to carry out their demand with utmost zeal, using against the group the entire repressive arsenal of the criminal law. The women were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, despite insisting it was a form of political protest. Their quick trial was marked by procedural violations and absurdities. Their actions, however, have not been qualified as criminal offense either by independent experts, or by numerous believers who support the women.

Meanwhile, it is quite obvious that the protest action of the Pussy Riot band pursues the ancient Eastern Christian tradition of Folly for Christ’s sake. The feminist band claimed that they respected Christian values, and voiced their discontent with the commercialization of the Church and its total submission to the state policy. Imitating the style of protest punk rock, they in fact followed the tradition of Byzantine and Russian Holy Fools, who would wear the mask of insanity and burst into churches, where they would blame the clergy and the laymen for their sins. In their letters from prison Nadezhda and Maria (the latter is a devout Christian and an active volunteer) forgive their persecutors and pray for them.

The most famous Cathedral in Russia is named after St. Basil, the most famous Russian Holy Fool, who used to walk naked in Moscow and break icons in the Kremlin. Today his well-educated and courageous followers are kept behind bars. Supporters of the Pussy Riot band have set up a camp outside the court building, organize meetings and picket lines, write open letters to Patriarch Kirill and the Court, which collect tens of thousands of signatures, and hold conferences. But all the authorities turn a deaf ear.

Although on October 10 Ekaterina Samutsevich, one of the women on trial, had her sentence to two years in a labour colony changed to a suspended sentence, no one has withdrawn the actual sentence or stopped the political persecution, and we are determined to continue the struggle for the rehabilitation of all the Pussy Riot activists.

It is very important at this point to gain the support of Christians abroad. That could hopefully help to change the situation in favour of justice and mercy.

• Ludmila Alekseeva, Chairman of Moscow Helsinki Group

• Priest Gleb Yakunin, Member of Moscow Helsinki Group, Chairman of Committee for Defense of Freedom of Conscience

• Sergey Buryanov, Co-Chairman of the Institute for Freedom of Conscience

• Lev Levinson, Expert of Human Rights Institute

• Vyacheslav Vinnikov, Priest

• Yakov Krotov, Priest

• Aleksandr Soldatov, Chief Editor of Portal-Credo.Ru

• Artur Aristakisyan, Film director, writer

• Dr. Elena Golovina, Literature and Psychology Scholar

• Natalya Stefanova, Radio journalist (‘Voice of Russia’)

• Irina Karatzuba, Associate Professor of Saint Philaret’s Orthodox Christian Institute, Radio journalist

• Oksana Kiyanskaya, Professor of Russian State University for Humanities

• David Feldman, Professor of Russian State University for Humanities

• Elena Kaluzhskaya, Executive of Andrey Sakharov’s Centre, Chief Editor of Gogol.tv

• Ilya Morozov, Journalist

• Valentina Konstantinova, Feminist activist

• Katerina Khmelnitzkaya, Literature and Psychology Scholar

• Elena Volkova, Professor of Comparative Literature and Culture

• Tatyana Bazzhina, Professor of Russian State University for Humanities

• Varvara Faer, stage director

• Maria Kotova, singer, teacher

• Anno Komarov, LGBTQI activist

• Dr. Dmitry Kanibolotsky, biophysicist, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine

• Sergey Knyazev, poet, journalist