Me and the cop: Pussy Riot releases new protest song
July 18, 2018
Russian punk group Pussy Riot put out a new song Tuesday that envisions protestor-embracing, gay-friendly police officers. This comes after four band members were arrested for storming the field during the World Cup final at the weekend.
"Track About a Good Cop" marks a new musical direction for the feminist rockers: They make use of the beats and synthesizers of house music for their satire on police officers.
The video shows four Russian police officers — three men, one woman — move from standing sternly in the snow to dancing flirtatiously as if in a nightclub.
"Girls and boys / Sugary streets / Cops are kissing under the clouds," goes the refrain, with its homoerotic undertones. "Me and the cop / Me and the cop / We have turned from enemies into a duo."
In a statement, Pussy Riot called the song "a utopian dream about alternative political reality in which instead of arresting activists and putting them in jail, cops are joining activists."
The band said it was envisioning a "world where cops got rid of homophobia, stopped the war on drugs and actually understood that it's much better to be joyful and nice to people."
Shaking things up
It also put out a list of demands including freedom for its four members who were jailed for interrupting Sunday's globally broadcast final between France and Croatia.
On Monday, a Moscow court sentenced Veronika Nikulshina, Olga Kuracheva, Olga Pakhtusova and Pyotr Verzilov to 15 days in prison. It also banned them from visiting sports events for three years.
The four members of Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist activist group, were found guilty of "grossly violating the rules for spectators' behavior" and given the maximum punishment possible under the charge.
The protest action took place at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium on Sunday and briefly halted play in the second half of the match between France and Croatia. Watching from the stands were Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron.
Pussy Riot immediately posted messages on social media claiming responsibility for the protest. They also issued a list of six demands, including "Let all political prisoners free," "Stop illegal arrests on rallies" and "Allow political competition in the country."
Another famous protest
Pussy Riot is perhaps most famous for performing an anti-Putin protest song in a central Moscow church in February 2012.
Three of the group's members were subsequently convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" at a trial that attracted global media attention and drew protests from rights groups.
On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia's treatment of the protestors, finding that three Pussy Riot members arrested in 2012 had been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment and that their rights to a fair trial and to liberty had been violated.
Group members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were released after serving 22 months of their two-year sentences. The other convicted member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was given a suspended sentence.
sh/als/rls (ap, afp)