The Voice Project is joining FreePussyRiot.org in calling for a global day of solidarity on the anniversary of the Pussy Riot verdict and sentencing, August 17th. The conviction and sentencing of Maria Aleykhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Ekaterina Samutsevich has been emblematic of Russia’s slide into totalitarianism, anti-feminist intimidation, and the stripping of human rights from LGBT individuals, as well as creating systemic intimidation for human rights NGOs and Russian citizens wishing to speak out about these abuses, injustice or the policies of the Russian government.

Maria and Nadia remain in their second year of incarceration in Russian penal colonies, Katya remains under restricted probation.

From FreePussyRiot.org: “We demand that inalienable human rights and freedoms, entrenched in the International Convention on Human Rights and the Russian Constitution, be respected. We demand freedom of speech, freedom of expression, gender parity, social equality. We demand immediate termination of all types of discrimination, taking place in Russia.”

Dr. King’s words, that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” have never been truer. With more and more governments around the world adopting the mantle of authoritarianism, systematically stripping human rights from humans and bestowing them on supranational corporations, abandoning protections for the poor and other disenfranchised communities as well as representation of the general citizenry in favor of only small concentrations of wealth and privilege, controlling through judicial intimidation and surveillance, now more than ever, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honors are bound together.

We need to stand up for our sisters and brothers wherever they are. We fight for them. They fight for us.  That’s how it will have to work from here on out. Join us and FreePussyRiot.org on 17 August: write letters to Maria and Nadia, create and sign petitions, stage art, feminist, anti-authoritarian events, sing, paint, create banners and slogans, organize gigs and concerts, flash-mobs, have pickets, protests, exhibitions, readings. For more information please visit FreePussyRiot.org

The thing of it is, we’re all in this together. See you on the streets.

Hunter Heaney
Executive Director
The Voice Project