Two members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot took to a New York stage on Wednesday evening to demand the release of anti-government prisoners as Russia prepares to open the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has staked his reputation on the Sochi Games, but Russia has come under pressure by human rights activists in the months leading up to the Games for its intolerance of political dissent and a law passed last year banning promotion of homosexuality among minors.
“We demand a Russia that is free and a Russia without Putin,” Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said after being introduced at Amnesty International’s “Bringing Human Rights Home” concert by pop star Madonna.
Photo: EPA
The case of Pussy Riot, in particular, has sparked a global outcry.
In 2012, Tolokonnikova, 24, and Maria Alekhina, 25, were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after storming Moscow’s biggest Orthodox cathedral and beseeching the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin.
After nearly two years behind bars, Putin granted them an amnesty in December last year.
Before speaking at the concert, the pair met with US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to discuss “disturbing” trends in Russia, prompting a retort from Moscow’s UN envoy.
At the concert, the pair sought to draw attention to the fate of eight Russian demonstrators who will be sentenced later this month after being charged with mass disorder at a 2012 protest against Putin.
Power traded jibes with Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin over her meeting with the two members of Pussy Riot.
Power tweeted that she met “some brave ‘troublemakers’” who discussed their time in jail.
“I asked Pussy Riot if they were afraid of prison. Response: No. In prison we could see the terrible conditions. It’s human rights fieldwork,” Power added.
When Churkin was asked about Power’s meeting with Pussy Riot at a press conference late on Wednesday, he quipped: “She has not joined the band?”
As journalists burst into laughter, he said: “I would expect her to invite them to perform in the National Cathedral in Washington. This is my expectation. Maybe they arrange a world tour for them — St Peter’s cathedral in Rome, then maybe in Mecca in Saudi Arabia and end up with a gala concert at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. If ambassador Power fell short, I would be disappointed,” Churkin said.
After hearing his comments, Power tweeted: “Ambassador Churkin. I’d be honored to go on tour with Pussy Riot — a group of girls who speak up & stand for human rights. Will you join us?”
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.