Maryam Namazie

Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger

Religion not Pussy Riot is guilty of hooliganism

Three members of Pussy Riot were found guilty of ‘hooliganism’ driven by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in jail for staging an ‘obscene’ ‘punk prayer service’ at the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow as part of a protest against Putin.

If anything it is religion that is part of the hooliganism in society. What could be more hateful and obscene than a two year prison sentence for singing in a church?

FEMEN have the right idea. Watch then chainsaw a crucifix:

As I mentioned before, this is something I’d love to do in a mosque…

Comments

41 responses to “Religion not Pussy Riot is guilty of hooliganism”

  1. SuperMental Avatar
    SuperMental

    Maryam I agree completely. Thanks for this post.

    Reply
  2. falsehoodwinsovertruth Avatar
    falsehoodwinsovertruth

    Maryam Namazie,
    …… As I mentioned before, this is something I’d love to do in a mosque….

    –> After leaving Iran with full of doubts,What convinced hesitant and doubtful Mariam Namazie (and other ex-Muslims) to leave Islam?. The following video has totally changed her faith and helped her to leave the religion as a whole.

    After leaving Islam, why she is dedicated her life to hate Islam?..Watch out this video.

    By linking this video on your blog, you can help other hesitant Muslims to leave this barbaric religion right now without any delay.

    There are tens of other videos out there on you tube for doubtful and hesitant Muslims to become atheists.

    Please help Maryam Namazie to fight against this terror filled religion called Islam.

    (A MUST WATCH video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2fMgoHsBXk

    Reply
  3. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    I don’t care if Christianity has a terrible history, I say leave artifacts alone. It bothers me to see people burning books and tearing down memorials. It reminds me of Muslims in Mecca and Timbuktu destroying pieces of antiquity, or the Romans burning the Jewish Temple. Just because the religion is immoral doesn’t mean you should destroy the evidence that it exists! Our history as humans is littered with shit, and we should not forget it.

    Reply
    1. ik Avatar
      ik

      I agree. REALLY not wanting to see us giving up the things that can make us better than them.

      Reply
  4. The czar and the patriarch | Pharyngula

    […] Russia, but it seems to be the women who are leading the charge against tyranny. Take a look at the Ukrainian FEMEN, too. Women are becoming the bravest of us […]

    Reply
  5. Illogical Fallacies Avatar
    Illogical Fallacies

    To be fair, this has nothing to do with religion. Putin could care less about what people do in church. What he DOES care about however, is criticism against himself and his politics, and that criticism is exactly what Pussy Riot served him. In court they’re blaming the sentence on hooliganism and blasphemy, because jailing people for being opposed to the government would earn Putin more than a few frowns from the West. Using religion as an explanation for jailing Pussy Riot is a much easier and safer way out.

    This is nothing new. A month ago, one of Russia’s leading opposition figures, Alexei Navalny, was charged for a crime that will give him up to ten years in prison. However, he was not accused of being an enemy of Putin, but of… stealing timber (http://www.economist.com/node/21559954). A crime that Navalny has most likely never committed. But again, it’s easier to jail a thief than a political dissident.

    Politics, not religion.

    Reply
    1. Albert Bakker Avatar
      Albert Bakker

      But it was Kirill who went out of his way to push for a harsh penalty against Pussy Riot and Putin who outwardly at least did seem a bit ambivalent. Pussy Riot denounced in their act of protest Kirill for urging his parishioners to vote for Putin. Kirill earlier declared Putin to be “a miracle from God” The passage that probably got his panties tie up in his crotch translates:

      “Patriarch Gundy believes in Putin.
      Better believe in God, you vermin!”

      source: Guardian

      So like almost anywhere else in the world, politics and religion are pretty much the same pathetic thing.

      Reply
    2. anubisprime Avatar
      anubisprime

      Illogical Fallacies @ 19

      To be fair, this has nothing to do with religion.

      To be really fair it has everything to do with religion.
      It was the jeebus drooklers that got their knickers in a twist and it was they that pushed for harsher penalties.

      Putin clones used the religious aspect to enforce their draconian paranoia hiding behind the cassock…as opposed to the cossack!

      It disguised the real intent to silence opposition…typical russian `

      Reply
      1. anubisprime Avatar
        anubisprime

        19.2

        Sorry format screw up…

        It disguised the real intent to silence opposition, typical Russian political fear tactics. `

        Reply
  6. anubisprime Avatar
    anubisprime

    logicthoughts @ 17

    Me: Pussy Riots were preparing new ground for future Lenins and Stalins and other brutal murderers…..

    You of course have a citation for that extraordinary puerility?
    Your name tag is not exactly apt seemingly!

    Reply
  7. logicthoughts Avatar
    logicthoughts

    Mariam N said :
    Three members of Pussy Riot were found guilty of ‘hooliganism’ …

    Acleron said : Saying that some people who call for free speech are hypocrites because if something is said that they don’t like……

    Me: Pussy Riots were preparing new ground for future Lenins and Stalins and other brutal murderers…..

    For your kind information,—- Lenins, stalins and other ruthless atheist and communist brutes and their followers were doing the same as YOU PEOPLE and pussy riots are doing – before they got power to rule Russia and other communist nations –and became one of the worst mass murderers in human history.

    You all atheists and communists need not to worry any more, your days are near….but I am really afraid of you hateful devils that is against any religious beliefs.

    You all atheists and communists must know all regimes belonging to your belief collapsed long ago…its revival is more dangerous and dreaded now than before because of availability of technology and weapons of mass destructions.

    Reply
    1. Albert Bakker Avatar
      Albert Bakker

      No. Posting it twice doesn’t make it any less incoherent. Maybe it is encrypted.

      Reply
    2. ik Avatar
      ik

      Wow. out of that incoherent mess DOES come the reminder that the bloody regimes of Stalin (And Lenin? Was he all that bad? I don’t actually know.) tend to start as activists like us. I have no fear of these Pussy Riot people, or of atheists in general, of course: Most minority-based activists do just fine. But it still is where such horrors often start.

      Reply
      1. albertbakker Avatar
        albertbakker

        This is one of the reasons I oppose this sort of action. Their reasoning might and as you can see from some of the comments that this cross represents for them a symbol of religious oppression today, while this cross symbolizes for christians mainly, their oppression in Stalinist times.

        Toppling this cross therefore symbolizes liberation for the first and a denial or for the truly paranoid reinstatement of the oppression it symbolizes. This I think is what this easily frightened poster is referring to.

        It gives the impression that secularism or atheism (which is equated with communism, communism with socialism and socialists with social democrats or anything left to Mussolini) is incompatible with freedom of religion. It is most definitely not. Atheists who oppose freedom of religion and think enforcing unbelief is the most sensible way to go are very few. I oppose them. I feel no affinity with them at all. Atheists by the way are all over the political landscape. Most are however socially liberal, because they realize the reciprocal nature of denying the rights and freedoms of others.

        Reply
  8. Lizzy Avatar
    Lizzy

    “As I mentioned before, this is something I’d love to do in a mosque…”

    Funny you should say that…

    I saw this posted online by a right-wing twit named Lee Ingram:

    “Music stars including Paul McCartney and British state officials including The Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt condemned the over-reaction to free speech, along with no doubt thousands of councillors, MP’s, and MEP’s, sports stars and TV Stars all over England. Twitter will be full of condemning comments for the next week or so, no doubt about it.

    What have all the supporters of ‘Pussy Riot’ got in common? They are all calling for free speech and so are all hypocrites.

    Can we imagine the reaction from all the people mentioned if I staged a protest calling for the Anglophobic British Government political elite to resign, via a disruptive punk band singing a punk prayer protest song in a Hindu Temple, Sikh Gurdwara, Or Muslim Mosque?

    There would be outrage and free speech would be put on trial and some would even welcome me being put on trial for my crime of free speech. None of these folk support free speech really… where were they all when David Starkey spoke out against black gangster type migrant rioters? They let him fend for himself all alone didn’t they and no doubt many of them suddenly didn’t want free speech as it may offend on that occasion. Hypocrites.”

    Wonder what he’d make of you, Maryam 🙂

    Reply
    1. Acleron Avatar
      Acleron

      Saying that some people who call for free speech are hypocrites because if something is said that they don’t like, they will complain, is one thing. Trying to extend that to saying that calling for free speech is hypocrisy is quite a different thing.
      Personally, I’ll speak up for free speech for everyone, that includes homeopaths, anti-vaxxers, holocaust deniers, catholics, hate mongers, left wing, right wing etc ad nauseam. That doesn’t mean that I have to listen to their statements and not answer. The vast majority of the arguments of these extremists are so puerile that mere publicity destroys them.

      Reply
  9. ... Avatar
    …

    Those girls have some serious guts. Now that is a bit more like it! FTB take note: this is what real activism looks like.

    Reply
    1. ik Avatar
      ik

      Riiiiight. Because ‘Real’ activism means deliberately criminializing yourself and destroying the property of somebody/something else as a show of how ‘radical’ you are. If people associating themselves with the New/ Gnu Atheists do that in America, atheism WILL DIE here.

      Reply
  10. anubisprime Avatar
    anubisprime

    As for the video clip…now that is what I call strident gnu atheism!

    Must be enough to increase the Vatican’s laundry staff roster to keep up with demand!

    Reply
  11. anubisprime Avatar
    anubisprime

    Putin needs the delusional’s in sky fairyism.

    He is not best popular nation wide, he will not deliberately rub jeebus droolers up their cassocks the wrong way, he depends to much on their influence amongst the denizens of the steppes to the suburbs of Moscow.

    It was the Church that kicked up and got all frumpy about the performance, claiming desecration and blasphemy…they were the complainants that gifted it to the Kremlin that are not best gifted with humor or criticism immunity.

    The Kremlin are rather isolated these days globally, what with dragging their heels over Syria, thus insuring more children die from Assad’s insanity.
    So they are over sensitive, which has always been a default setting for Russian government since 1917.

    Every government since the Bolshevik revolution learnt and became paranoid of the fact that the populace can decide if you are superfluous to needs if so moved.

    They tend to overcompensate in the most brutal and totalitarian ways to forestall their forced retirement.

    They therefore considered the band a perfect demonstration of the states power in ‘maintaining society’

    But what do the church do they stoke the rhetoric up, xianity loves ’em some martyrdom to show how the world is beastly to their figment.

    That is a trait not particular to Russia, it is an xian wet dream globally.

    But a certain backlash creeps in, all of a sudden it becomes clear the charges the justice ministry were going for…under Kremlin orders no doubt… become rather synonymous with Siberian holiday camp enforced vacations the Church was the moaners and whiners and their moaning and whining was the catalyst of some good healthy Kremlin paranoia which they just had to exercise.

    When reality returned from a short break the church realized they were the political patsies and the feedback from the result from global sources became rather embarrassing for them…

    They are now calling for mercy…a bit late and a bit to little.
    Maybe they truly feel ashamed of their hand wringing for jeebus…but probably not much.
    Besides the government will not be bothered with the pompous whiners anymore they served their purpose.

    Reply
  12. Upright Ape Avatar
    Upright Ape

    Sorry off topic Maryam, but this might interest you.

    http://secularhumanist.blogspot.com/2012/08/murderous-dictator-vs-taliban-style.html

    Reply
  13. F Avatar
    F

    Cross commemorates Stalin’s ruthless mass murders, blah, blah, blah. Erected by Christians who think they are and own fucking everything. Just like the crosses which “commemorate” soldiers who have died serving the US, they don’t need to be crosses, shouldn’t be crosses, and religion should keep their shit out of public spaces meant to commemorate everyone who dies, who most certainly were not all Christian. (Because fuck the Jews and Muslims and atheists and other religions and the wrong flavor of Christians who don’t believe in sticking a fucking cross in to commemorate what the fuck ever that has nothing to do with fictional crucifixions.)

    Reply
    1. Albert Bakker Avatar
      Albert Bakker

      Even if that is so, that doesn’t make it less wrong. It doesn’t even make it less stupid.

      Reply
  14. Albert Bakker Avatar
    Albert Bakker

    I don’t understand why this sort of action would be considered commendable. I don’t get the relevance with respect to the sentencing of the members of Pussy Rio. I think the symbolism is completely wrong (this cross being erected to commemorate Stalin’s purges.) It is just vandalism, unnecessarily grievous and just plain indefensible.
    I think it is wrong and irresponsible to support this and I think if it inspires others to emulate something like this it could cost lives. The woman handling the chainsaw was an unexpected gust of wind away from decapitating herself. Once her hair gets entangled in the chain the story is over. To me this looks like shooting yourself in the foot with a cannon.

    Reply
  15. Pray Hard Avatar
    Pray Hard

    Politics and the church having indigestion and constipation over the feminine. Imagine that.

    Reply
  16. jamesskaar Avatar
    jamesskaar

    was it private property?

    Reply
    1. Gregory in Seattle Avatar
      Gregory in Seattle

      Nope. During the Soviet period, all church property was nationalized. Much was converted to other uses, but the Communists allowed some Russian Orthodox churches to remain in operation, on the condition that they be total puppets of the Kremlin. After the fall of communism, the power dynamic between Church and State remains largely the same.

      So strictly speaking, every piece of property controlled by the Russian Orthodox hierarchy — cathedrals, parish churches, monastaries — are all owned by the national government and are presumably public spaces. However, among the concessions given to the Church in the last few decades, they have the right to prosecute anyone and everyone who comes onto the property for pretty much any reason they want to drum up. They cannot prosecute for blasphemy — Russia is, after all, a secular democracy — but the statute regulating “hooliganism” is exceptionally broad and convenient.

      Reply
  17. Martyn N Hughes Avatar
    Martyn N Hughes

    Bravo!

    It makes one want to go digging around the garage looking for that chainsaw that’s hidden away there somewhere 😀

    Reply
  18. Snapp Avatar
    Snapp

    They shamelessly cut down a memorial to those who died under communism, and we’re supposed to applaud this? Bullshit.

    Reply
    1. Grr Avatar
      Grr

      I didn’t see a memorial in the video. What I did see was a clearly identifiable symbol of a specific oppressive belief system that is set on imposing their regressive values on the population, regardless of the ridiculous nature of those beliefs. Wherever religion successfully infringes on the rights of humans (jailing people for free expression) it needs to be torn down.

      Reply
    2. ik Avatar
      ik

      I think that I too am bothered by this vandalism. Even if it is good politically (which I suspect that it actually is not, it will confirm hateful ideas in the minds of the religious.)

      Reply
    3. Siverly Avatar
      Siverly

      Hmm. Seems more a statement about ‘religious persecution’ than about the tragedy of Russians’ suffering. Disengenuous. They could have created any form of monument, sculpture, work of commemorative art that honoured the suffering of Christian Russians and included a cross somewhere on it. Instead, just a big tall crucifix. And on a dominant site above everything else. Classic religious propaganda thinking. Having a large crucifix dominate an area is ideological and intimidating. I’m glad someone cut it down.

      Reply
  19. Gregory in Seattle Avatar
    Gregory in Seattle

    But the Russian Orthodox hierarchy has forgiven them! How can you say that religion is the hooligan here?

    Granted, the church has been demanding their blood for months, whipping up the sheep into a bleating stampede, has been fighting tooth and nail to impose their brand of theocracy on a (allegedly) secular democracy, and has pretty much gotten everything they have been screeching for. But they’ve forgiven the women, so that makes things all better.

    Or something.

    Reply
  20. Antony Burt Avatar
    Antony Burt

    I feel bad that FEMEN damaged a nice little tree with the huge ugly cross they cut down.

    Reply
  21. medred Avatar
    medred

    Are seriously comparing what happened to Pussy Riot to Stalin’s crimes against humanity ?

    The cross was erected as a tribute to Stalin’s victims.

    Reply
    1. Acleron Avatar
      Acleron

      Obviously I’m not comparing Stalin’s and Putin’s actions, I’m illuminating the total hypocrisy of a religion

      Reply
    2. ik Avatar
      ik

      ….

      Does that cross belong to somebody?

      Reply
  22. Acleron Avatar
    Acleron

    The catholics are very fond of blaming the hideous crimes of Stalin on atheism. I suppose that now Putin backs their ridiculous cause for his own reasons he is their bestest friend.

    Obscene treatment of these women, cynicism and gross hypocrisy rolled into one.

    BTW this is all in the name of the sweet and peaceful nature of one of their gods. yuk

    Reply
    1. logicthoughts Avatar
      logicthoughts

      Mariam N said :
      Three members of Pussy Riot were found guilty of ‘hooliganism’ …

      Acleron said : Saying that some people who call for free speech are hypocrites because if something is said that they don’t like……

      Me: Pussy Riots were preparing new ground for future Lenins and Stalins and other brutal murderers…..

      For your kind information,—- Lenins, stalins and other ruthless atheist and communist brutes and their followers were doing the same as YOU PEOPLE and pussy riots are doing – before they got power to rule Russia and other communist nations –and became one of the worst mass murderers in human history.

      You all atheists and communists need not to worry any more, your days are near….but I am really afraid of you hateful devils that is against any religious beliefs.

      You all atheists and communists must know all regimes belonging to your belief collapsed long ago…its revival is more dangerous and dreaded now than before because of availability of technology and weapons of mass destructions.

      Reply
      1. Rick Avatar
        Rick

        So you believe that atheism and communism are one and the same? Seriously? What color is the sky in your world?

        Reply
  23. obscure1 Avatar
    obscure1

    Today , the 18th of August in the Holy Year 2012, Here, on the enlightened blog of Maryam Namazie, We accuse the Russian Orthodox Church and the Putin lot of lethal diversion of our living strength toward an empty heaven, We accuse the Russian Orthodox Church and the Putin lot of swindling, We accuse the Russian Orthodox Church and the Putin lot of infecting the world with its funereal morality, Of being the running sore on the rotting body of Mother Russia. Verily we say unto you, God is dead, We vomit the agonizing insipidity of your prayers, For your prayers have been the greasy smoke over the battle fields on this vale of tears. Go forth then into the tragic and exalting desert of a world where God is dead, And till this earth anew with your bare hands, With your PROUD hands, With your unpraying hands. Today, the 18th of August in the Holy Year 2012, Here on the enlightened blog of Maryam Namazie, We proclaim the death of the Christ-god, so that Man may live at last. FREE PUSSY RIOT (Apologies to Serge Berna)

    Reply

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