<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/11/pussy-riot-maria-alyokhina-putin-crimes-hitler-years-of-resistance>
"When Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina left Russia in April this year, she went to
Iceland, essentially a political refugee. She had been repeatedly arrested
since early 2021, on specious charges – “violation of sanitary and
epidemiological rules”, social media activity, attending a demonstration in
support of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
She is no longer in Iceland, and speaks to me, as her fellow Pussy Riot member
Nadya Tolokonnikova did earlier this year, from an unnamed location. But she
resists any phrases that dramatise her situation – persecution, flight, exile,
escape – preferring a hard-boiled statement of the facts. “I was arrested, many
times – and not just arrests. I was under a travel ban, I had a red flag on the
border for two years, I had to find a way to tour. The heads of the political
Moscow police were quite often trying to go to my house, speak with my mother,
catch me there.” She describes the trigger event for her departure: the news
that she was about to be moved from house arrest to a prison."
Via Rose and 7B'JaJaDa.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
