Let’s assume that an english version of Pussy Riot sang an anti-Cameron or anti-Mrs Windsor song in Westminster Abbey. What would they get done for?

They wouldn’t. Would they?

Edit: they wouldn’t get done for anything, I shouldn’t imagine.

I think they (the authorities) would.

the acoustics would be awful.

cathedrals and punk rock are poor bed fellows.

I’m going to see the Futureheads in Durham Cathedral next week. They’re singing A’Capella, but I expect it will be fantastic.

I’d imagine they’d get done for trespass or some sort of breach of the peace.

Or, depending on the mood of the rozzers, breach of SOCA.

Guessing the pistols never did a gig in the abbey then?

I don’t think they did.

You mean, a bit like the way the Matyrs of Critical Mass were executed?

Now be serious!

Isn’t it just a bit hypocritcal for the UK to get all high and mighty about Pussy Riot when our laws are less than libertarian?

The question posed by the OP, was to do with if they sang. Nobody’s mentioned breaking in or trespassing. Those issues, quite rightly should be dealt with differently, whether your a Russian punk band or not.

I’m thinking that if they desecrated the alter at say, St Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, then they would be arrested and charged with something, maybe a breach of the peace or even incitement to riot ( 😯 )

The western indignation over the treatment of Pussy Riot is just the next round in the process of supporting the un-settling process in those regimes with differing cultures; Egypt, Libya, Syria, and now… maybe… Russia. Didn’t you know, social networking is the new cold war 8)

Guessing the pistols never did a gig in the abbey then?

They didn’t no. They were arrested after performing “God Save the Queen” on a boat sailing down the Thames during the silver jubilee though.

I think what people are trying to say that while there are laws here which deal with unofficial protest as there are in every other country in the world, I don’t think a punk band would get two years for playing in a cathedral. Didn’t the Pistols hire a boat to play outside parliament? The police were involved but I don’t remember any jail sentences being handed out.

So in answer to the question. No I don’t think it is hypocrisy. Every country has laws against protest to some degree: Getting 2 years for blasphemy when conducting an anti-govt protest puts Russia amongst the bad boys.

I don’t think a punk band would get two years for playing in a cathedral

No – probably more like a month, but possibly as much as six months. Religiously aggravated causing of harassment, alarm or distress.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/4A
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/public_order_offences/#a02

In the song, the group asked the “Theotokos” (Virgin Mary) to “become a feminist” and “put Putin away”.[22] The song criticizes the repression of dissent in Russia and the church’s support for Vladimir Putin. The Russian Patriarch, Kirill I of Moscow, is described as someone who believes in Putin rather than God.[23] Kirill had openly supported Putin’s candidacy before the presidential election.[24] The song also contains the lyrics: “Shit, shit, the Lord’s shit!”[25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot#Church_protest

Stacey pleaded guilty to an offence under the Public Order Act 1986. He admitted that he used threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He also accepted that his offence was racially aggravated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/22/muamba-twitter-abuse-student-sorry

Didn’t Peter Tatchell get arrested for protesting during a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, under some really obscure law?

EDIT: Ah yes, our friend Wikipedia says:

“On 12 April 1998, Tatchell led an OutRage! protest, which disrupted the Easter sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, with Tatchell mounting the pulpit to denounce what he claimed was Carey’s opposition to legal equality for lesbian and gay people. The protest had a lot of media coverage and led to Tatchell’s prosecution under the little-used Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 (formerly part of the Brawling Act 1551), which prohibits any form of disruption or protest in a church.Tatchell failed in his attempt to summon Carey as a witness and was convicted. The judge fined him the small sum of £18.60, which commentators theorized was a wry allusion to the year of the statute used to convict him.”

£18.60 fine is a bit less harsh than a couple of years in prison…

You could get two months for that, or two years if “threats or force” were used:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/36

i like the fact that the times has the word PUSSY in its main headline today
but the times is always up for some russia bashing!

I wanna riot, a riot of my own… 8)

I heard a guy from Amnesty International describe it as a “legitimate protest”, it wasn’t, not where they did it. But they certainly didn’t deserve 2 years.

Unless they were trying to incite a pussy riot of course, then as I understand it the correct tariff is 4 years.

kimbers – Member
i like the fact that the times has the word PUSSY in its main headline today
but the times is always up for some russia bashing!

and all the news reports on TV and radio having to say pussy 😀

But yes, even Gorbachev didn’t agree with it.

even Gorbachev didn’t agree with it

If the west hadn’t supported Yeltsin overthrowing Gobachev, Russia would now probably a lot more stable and democratic.

I thought he was cool. You knew where you stood in the Thatcher – Gorbachev era.

I was amused to hear the Pistols’ “God save the Queen” in the Olympics opening ceremony. Three of those I was watching with added “and her fascist régime”.

Stop buying gas if you don’t want to prop up the Putin regime.

I was amused to hear the Pistols’ “God save the Queen” in the Olympics opening ceremony. Three of those I was watching with added “and her fascist régime”.

+1000
I thought it was the bizarrest thing to play. John Lydon said it was all about screwing the monarchy and then they play it at an exhibition for England, very weird indeed.

If the west hadn’t supported Yeltsin overthrowing Gobachev, Russia would now probably a lot more stable and democratic.

This is absolute pish, of course.

The west didn’t support Yeltsin’s overthrow of Gorbachev, not least because Gorbachev wasn’t overthrown by Yeltsin. Gorbachev was arrested by a rightist anti-Yeltsin clique led by Kryuchkov etc. Yeltsin’s defense of the White House in 1991 was a defensive attempt to stop the RSFSR Supreme Soviet being dissolved by the putsch committee, not an anti-Gorbachev coup. Prior to the August coup, the SU was still seen as being viable within a looser constitutional framework, a project in which Yeltsin and Gorbachev were (uneasy) partners – the various republican leaders only really spiked the SU in December 1991 in Minsk.

2)

Not only did the West not precipitate the August 1991 coup and the dissolution of the USSR, it also entirely failed to predict, recognize and plan for it. It was a monumental intelligence and analytical failure.

3)

There is nothing to suggest that Russia would be more democratic and stable if August 1991 hadn’t happened. Gorbachev was fantastically unpopular and would never have clung to power. By 1990, there were already conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, pogroms in Sumgait; civil disorder in Kazakhstan, and determined elected independence movements in the Baltic states. Gorbachev himself was no democrat, having ordered the suppression of democracy movements by military means in Riga and Baku, and – you know – being the principal of a failing totalitarian regime.

dunno… I’m going to see The Levellers at Exeter cathedral next month.. I imagine an anti establishment song or two will be on the setlist..

I’ll smuggle a message out to STW in a wardens arse if I get sent to jail for attending

There is nothing to suggest that Russia would be more democratic and stable if August 1991 hadn’t happened. Gorbachev was fantastically unpopular and would never have clung to power. By 1990, there were already conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, pogroms in Sumgait; civil disorder in Kazakhstan, and determined elected independence movements in the Baltic states. Gorbachev himself was no democrat, having ordered the suppression of democracy movements by military means in Riga and Baku, and – you know – being the principal of a failing totalitarian regime.

There is no disputing Gorbachev’s unpopularity, however unlike Yeltsin he did not rig elections or constitutional referendums, something which Yeltsin did with the tacit approval of the US/West. The West no longer approves of vote-rigging in Russia as it is no longer carried out in a way which benefits it, however unlike the early days of Yeltsin, when Yeltsin was fairly dependent on Western support, the West is not now in a position to do much about it.

I agree that a Gorbachev legacy would have been more democratic than Yeltsin’s legacy has turned out to be. I see no evidence that Yeltsin had any commitment to democracy, and I see him personally responsible for the established power of the murderous Russian oligarchy.

There’s one of them looks quite shagable.

There’s one of them looks quite shagable.

Gorbachev or Yeltsin..?

MSP – Member
even Gorbachev didn’t agree with it
If the west hadn’t supported Yeltsin overthrowing Gobachev, Russia would now probably a lot more stable and democratic.

What utter utter garbage. Nicely flamed by konabunny.

One would hope so. One can’t have pussy rioting like that in the abbey. 😀