Pussy Riot Support Fund
**The fund is now closed. Our great thanks to everyone who donated for your support, your help was invaluable, or as described by Nadya, “a miracle.” We are thrilled that the women came through this ordeal safe and strong. Thank you for your support.**
We are managing the international support fund for Pussy Riot to aid with legal efforts to secure the freedom of the imprisoned members of the group, to meet the security, care and support needs of Nadya and Masha while they are incarcerated in the labor camps as well as care for their young children. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina have been convicted and sent to two of Russia’s most notorious labor camps for two year sentences as punishment for a peaceful protest that the all-girl group staged in Moscow’s Orthodox church last February. Amnesty International has recognized the women as official “Prisoners of Conscience.”
We are working directly with Pussy Riot and their international support teams. The Voice Project works to utilize the power of music to affect positive social change, alleviate suffering and promote human rights around the world and in keeping with that mission join us in helping to provide for the ongoing support for Nadya and Masha. The Pussy Riot Support Fund is used to keep Nadya and Masha clothed, supplied, visited and monitored in the labor camps (this is critical for their ongoing safety), and for their legal expenses and children’s care. Two years in a Russian labor camp for a 30 second protest song performance has to be unacceptable to us all as a global community. Regular updates on the funds distributions are published here for full transparency.
From Pussy Riot:
Thank you very much for your support during these months – while we’re sitting down here, in Mordovia, in a weird region of Russia with lots of swamps that is mostly famous for its prison camps, it’s very strange and wonderful to realize that there are people who do things to support you on the other side of the planet. At New Year’s eve me and the other girls locked up in prison camp no.14 built a huge snake from snow with lots of eggs and small baby snakes and then turned these snow sculptures into green, blue and yellow with water colors – that was a very rare splash of color that this place sees. And the other colorful splash, I’ll repeat, does happen in your mind when you think about the people who worry about you and try to support you. That is very cool and thank you.
— Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, Prison camp no.14, Mordovia
The Voice Project has been the most helpful, transparent and trusted guardian for the funds collected to support the imprisoned members of Pussy Riot. With the departure of the original legal defense team, we are thankful that The Voice Project has been able to accept the role of administrator for the the Pussy Riot Support Fund. Currently the fund is being distributed to the families of Masha and Nadia to support all needs for the women directly through work by Hunter Heaney, CEO of The Voice Project. Given that most of the new lawyers are working without fee, we are lucky that the funds can be used primarily for their children’s needs and all the many expenses associated with being in a remote prison labor camp, and for that all of you in the Voice Project and international support communities who have so generously given help, thank you.
— Pussy Riot
Funding Needs
Nadya and Masha are facing their second year in very cold, remote, and dangerous Russian labor camps (Gulags, yes, they still exist, the official term being “corrective labor camp”), away from their families and young children.
There are critical monthly expenses faced by each of the women and their families including monitoring and visitation by local attorneys and family members (crucial for their safety as unmonitored dissidents have died mysteriously in these camps), warm clothes, food, medicine and care for their two young children, Phillip and Gera. Please consider contributing the following:
$10 – provides phone and video call access
$25 – provides food packages
$50 – provides medicine
$100 – provides warm clothes
$150 – provides for family visitation costs
$300 – provides childcare for their children Phillip and Gera
$500 – provides monitoring by local lawyers
$2,500 – provides for one full month of their care and safety support efforts for each
For more background please see:
GUARDIAN: Pussy Riot trial “worse than Soviet era”
TIME: Russia’s Pussy Riot Trial: A Kangaroo Court Goes on a Witch Hunt
FOREIGN POLICY: Making Punk a Threat Again. Is Pussy Riot already the most politically influential punk rock group ever?