Russian punk performance artists Pussy Riot are all over the 24 hour news channels after a stunt they pulled in a Moscow Orthodox cathedral, singing and punch-dancing to an anti-Putin screed while churchgoers and nuns looked on in disdain. There just aren't enough knuckles to hit with wooden rulers for this kind of thing.
Three of the members were arrested, tried and given a 2 year sentence for hooliganism, as CNN and the BBC repeatedly informed me over the last day or so. [Apparently charges of "hoolaganism" are a much bigger concern in Europe than the rest of the world].
The arrest and sentencing provoked protests and similar demonstrations almost immediately, my favourite being a Ukrainian activist cutting down a crucifix with a chainsaw...while topless. (Incidentally, Chainsaw Topless would be a great grrrrl punk band).
Meanwhile, even Mikhail Gorbachev (that noted bastion of free speech and liberalism) has decried the band's imprisonment.
The ladies went out like punk rock gangstas, not just smirking from their clear glass cell (possibly used out of fear that one of them was a master of magnetism) but actually releasing another anti-Putin single the same day they were sentenced:
All of which leads me to believe this: The Exploited are poseurs with food colouring in their hair. These girls are the real deal.
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