JD Samson & MEN stand up for Pussy Riot

Lesbian punk artist JD Samson and performance art collective MEN have released a track in support of Russian feminist band Pussy Riot who are facing two years in jail.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and 30-year-old Samutsevich were arrested in March after holding a musical protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin on the steps of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

JD Samson (pictured) and MEN collaborated on the track ‘Let Them Out Or Let Me In’ to protest Russia’s increasing suppression of feminist and LGBTI rights.

“Part of what pushed me to start working for Pussy Riot’s release is that I know they would be doing the same for me,” Samson said.

“We are all part of the punk feminist activist art community, and part of what that means to me is standing by my sisters, and creating visibility of their case.

“These three women are intellectual, conceptual, strong, and incredibly brave. We can only, at this point, be a channel for their incredible voices.”

Pussy Riot are appealing the two year jail sentences imposed on them for their act of protest.

Samson said she and her colleagues were shocked to see the lack of separation between church and state in modern Russia.

“As Feminists we are shocked to see that in Russia the word ‘feminism’ is blasphemous,” she said.

“So we must stand up, because this is not only a window into Russia, but a window into our own government, governments around the world and our own fight for our personal freedoms.”

Overnight, Putin went on television to praise the sentences handed to three members of the feminist punk troupe.

“It was right to arrest them, and it was right that the court took the decision that it did,” Putin told the NTV channel.

“One cannot undermine the moral foundations, break-up the country. What would we be left with?”

Pussy Riot’s initial protest was motivated by their concern that Russia was becoming increasingly patriarchal and dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church, a process they believe has been aided and abetted by Putin.

The Russian government has received worldwide condemnation for increasingly suppressing dissent voices and the Pussy Riot case has become a focal point for international concerns.