In wake of the arrest of four members of Pussy Riot for invading the football pitch during the World Cup final, the protest punk group has released a new song and video (above) called Track About Good Cop. (Warning: The video may be unsuitable for viewers with photosensitive epilepsy.)
The song comes out just a day after news broke that the group members who invaded the football game on Sunday wearing police uniforms – Veronika Nikulshina, Olga Kuracheva, Olga Pakhtusova and Petya Verzilov – have been sentenced to 15 days in jail. In the video that the group later uploaded, they alluded to the late Russian poet Dimitri Prigov’s fair and just “heavenly policeman” and the oppressive “earthly police”, and issued a list of demands that included freedom of speech, freedom to demonstrate, and political competition.
Track About Good Cop carries on the metaphor of the “heavenly policeman” and the “earthly policeman” by imagining a world where, as per the group’s demand, the earthly policemen turn into heavenly policemen – that is, where the oppressive and cruel policeman in Russia become fair and just. Slightly bizarrely, the group does this by showing Russian policemen dancing with abandon in the snow to the clubby song, while the group sings, “Me and the cop, me and the cop, we’ve turned from enemies into a duo.”
Pussy Riot explained in a statement that “This track is a utopian dream about alternative political reality in which instead of arresting activists and putting them in jail cops are joining activists. The 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.”
Correspondingly, the lyrics also refer to articles in the Russian Criminal Code, specifically ones that refer to drugs, terrorism, slander, insulting authority and incitement to hatred or enmity. Pussy Riot told NPR that such elements of the criminal code are specifically being used by the government against activists.
The song came on the same day that the European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia for its treatment of Pussy Riot following the 2012 “punk prayer” protest and ruled that its members were judged too severely. The ECHR ordered Russian to pay $57,000 in damages and judicial expenses.
Infamous Chinese activist and performance artist Ai Weiwei also voiced his support (video below) for Pussy Riot’s world cup invasion, and demanded the release of the arrested members.
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