As previously reported, last night Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova spoke at Amnesty International's Bringing Human Rights Home concert. However, according to Pitchfork, the anonymous members of Pussy Riot emailed an open letter to supporters and posted it on their Livejournal just hours before the concert. The letter states that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are no longer part of Pussy Riot.
The two women had stated in interviews following their release that they are shifting their focus to prison reform in Russia; however, it was unclear whether the women were going to stay apart of the group.
"We are very pleased with Masha's and Nadia's release," the letter reads. "We are proud of their resistance against harsh trials that fell to their lot, and their determination by all means to continue the struggle that they had started during their stay in the colonies. Unfortunately for us, they are being so carried away with the problems in Russian prisons, that they completely forgot about the aspirations and ideals of our group-feminism, separatist resistance, fight against authoritarianism and personality cult, all of which, as a matter of fact, was the cause for their unjust punishment."
According to Pitchfork, the letter (written in Russian) goes on to say that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova have refused to communicate with the other members, who are frustrated that the media continue to refer to Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova as Pussy Riot members. They were especially frustrated with Pussy Riot's name being used at last night's Amnesty International concert.
"Moreover, instead of the names of Nadia and Masha, the poster of the [Amnesty International] event showed a man in a balaclava with electric guitar, under the name of Pussy Riot, while the organizers smartly called for people to buy expensive tickets. All this is an extreme contradiction to the very principles of Pussy Riot collective: We are all-female separatist collective-no man can represent us either on a poster or in reality. We belong to leftist anti-capitalist ideology-we charge no fees for viewing our art-work, all our videos are distributed freely on the web, the spectators to our performances are always spontaneous passers by, and we never sell tickets to our 'shows'."
"Our performances are always 'illegal', staged only in unpredictable locations and public places not designed for traditional entertainment. The distribution of our clips is always through free and unrestricted media channels. We are anonymous, because we act against any personality cult, against hierarchies implied by appearance, age and other visible social attributes. We cover our heads, because we oppose the very idea of using female face as a trademark for promoting any sort of goods or services."
"The mixing of the rebel feminist punk image with the image of institutionalised defenders of prisoners' rights, is harmful for us as collective, as well as it is harmful for the new role that Nadia and Masha have taken on."
The anonymous members did express support for the two freed women despite their new focus. "Yes, we lost two friends, two ideological fellow member, but the world has acquired two brave, interesting, controversial human rights defenders. We appreciate their choice and sincerely wish them well in their new career."
Neither Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova have commented on the letter, according to The New York Times. What do you think of the news? Let us know in the comments section below!
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