Maria Vladimirovna Alyokhina

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Marija Aljochina during the trial in Moscow (2012)

Marija Wladimirowna Aljochina ( Russian Мари́я Влади́мировна Алёхина ; born June 6, 1988 in Moscow ) is a Russian political activist and performance artist . She gained international fame as a member of Pussy Riot .

Life

When she was arrested, Alyokhina was a fourth-year student at the Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing in Moscow. As long-standing Greenpeace -Aktivistin it was previously in the protests against the now stopped highway project Moscow-Saint Petersburg involved (M11) of the large parts Khimki -Waldes should be cleared in the Moscow green belt. She is mother of one son (* 2007).

Pussy Riot

In the run-up to the Russian presidential election in 2012 , Alyochina had been an active member of Pussy Riot since October 2011 and participated in performance actions critical of Putin. The group attracted worldwide attention with the so-called “punk prayer” against the Russian patriarch Kyrill I and Vladimir Putin in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow on February 21, 2012.

Arrest and conviction

As a result of this action, Aljochina was taken into custody along with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samuzewitsch . The three activists were charged with gross violation of public order ( hooliganism ) under Section 213 of the Russian Criminal Code. After their lawyers were given limited access to the indictments, Alyochina and Tolokonnikova went on a two-week hunger strike .

In July 2012, the investigation was ended and charges were brought. On August 17, 2012, the three activists were convicted of "hooliganism out of religious hatred", but on August 27, 2012 they appealed to no avail.

Marija Aljochina stated in her closing statement:

“I am very annoyed when the prosecution speaks of 'so-called' modern art. The same thing happened during the trial of the poet Josef Brodsky in the Soviet Union. There was talk of Brodsky's 'so-called poems'. For me, this process is a 'so-called' process. And I'm not afraid of you and the verdict of this 'so-called' court. "

Also:

“For me, this procedure only has the status of a so-called process. And I'm not afraid of him. I am not afraid of lies and fictions, badly decorated by deception as a so-called court judgment. That's why you can take my so-called freedom. And it is precisely this that now exists in Russia. But nobody can take away my inner freedom. "

Despite persistent solidarity rallies after the arrest and conviction, the majority of the Russian public saw the appearance of Pussy Riot in the Church of Christ the Redeemer negatively and the court verdict was largely approved.

On the other hand, protests from human rights organizations, politicians and artists took place around the world against the court proceedings and the judgment, including an open letter from 100 internationally known artists on July 23, 2013 demanding the release of the activists.

Aljochina spent her two years in a prison camp near Nizhny Novgorod , 400 kilometers east of Moscow.

Review of the court judgment

The Supreme Court had in early December 2013, the review of the judgments against the detention of Marija Aljochina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikowa arranged: The mentioned in the judgment aspect of "hatred" had not been sufficiently proved ruled Russia's Supreme Court and referred the judgment to the competent court in Moscow back . In addition, "neither the young age of the defendants, their family situation nor the non-violence of their actions were taken into account" - Aljochina and Tolokonnikova are mothers of small children, which would have allowed them to be suspended under Russian law. “In addition, there is no valid motive for the indictment. Accordingly, the written version of the judgment did not agree with the judgment read out in the courtroom in August 2012. "

For Tolokonnikova and Alyochina, the order of the Supreme Court was an important partial success after the judiciary was repeatedly accused of politically controlled arbitrariness. Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Petrovich Lukin , who lodged the complaint with the Supreme Court on behalf of the detained activists, and Pussy Riot's lawyers therefore hoped for the women to be released soon.

Pardon and release

The Duma , advised on 17 December 2013 before the Olympic Games in Sochi, on an amnesty for 25,000 prisoners in Russia, which resulted in the Pussy Riot activists should be released regardless of the review of the judgment. The official occasion for the amnesty was the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Russian constitution on December 12th. At a press conference on December 19, 2013, Putin confirmed that the amnesty also applies to the imprisoned Pussy Riot members; how quickly this would be implemented was initially not known. Speaking of Pussy Riot, the Russian President said at the annual press conference: “I am not sorry that you ended up in a detention center, even if that is not a good thing. I feel sorry for them that they even committed this atrocity, which I believe demeans women. The amnesty is also not a review of the verdict, ”stressed Putin. "In theory, you can still come out today," said Irina Chrunova, the lawyer for Alyochina and Tolokonnikova, before Putin's announcement. The relatives of the two activists then traveled to the respective prison camps.

On December 23, 2013, Alyochina was released a few hours before her colleague Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and met with human rights activists immediately afterwards.

Others

The preparations for the “punk prayer” and the trial were documented in the Russian-American documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer and the Russian independent production Pussy vs. Putin and in the feature film The Moscow Trials .

Awards

On December 5, 2014, Marija Aljochina and Nadeschda Tolokonnikowa received the Hannah Arendt Prize from the city of Bremen together with the Ukrainian author Yuri Andruchowytsch . The press release stated that the award winners live and work in the post-imperial area of ​​the dissolved Soviet Union and oppose the attempt to restore old power relations in Ukraine and Russia and to abolish political freedoms. The conditions in independent Ukraine are of course different to those in Russia, which under Putin is about to follow in the footsteps of the previous tsarist and Soviet regimes of violence .

Web links

Commons : Marija Aljochina  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ RUSSIA: Jailed Pussy Riot punk band member Maria Alyokhina lost an appeal to a Russian court to be freed from prison in order to care for her five-year-old son
  2. ↑ Bettina Sengling: Icons of Protest ; in: Stern 35/2012 from August 23, 2012
  3. ↑ Bodo Mrozek : Suppressed Protest in Russia: Short Trial with these bums ; in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Online, 23 August 2012
  4. ↑ Imprisonment: Pussy riot punks appealed ; Spiegel Online , August 27, 2012, accessed September 30, 2013
  5. ↑ No Regrets - from Pussy Riot's closing arguments ; in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 19, 2012
  6. ↑ http://www.novayagazeta.ru/society/53903.html
  7. ↑ Mark Adomanis: What Do Russians Think About "Pussy Riot?" The Answer Might Surprise You ; In: Forbes Magazine online July 12, 2012, accessed November 15, 2013
  8. ↑ Amnesty International : Over 100 International Artists Call for Release of Pussy Riot: Open Letter from Adele, Bono, Madonna, Kate Nash, Yoko Ono, Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Die Toten Hosen, and others , accessed September 28, 2013
  9. ↑ a b c Tages-Anzeiger online (December 12, 2013): Court must review Pussy Riot judgments , accessed on December 12, 2013
  10. ↑ Amnesty International Switzerland online (December 12, 2013): Putin: Do not distract from human rights violations with the Olympics , accessed on December 12, 2013
  11. ↑ Spiegel online: Release of prisoners: Russian parliament votes for Putin's amnesty , accessed on December 24, 2013
  12. ↑ a b 20 minutes online (December 19, 2013): Charm offensive off Sochi , accessed on December 19, 2013
  13. ↑ ZDF heute.de (December 23, 2013): Second Pussy Riot musician is free ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heute.de archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 23, 2013
  14. ^ Hannah Arendt Prize 2014 . Free Hanseatic City of Bremen - Press releases. November 27, 2014. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Aljochina, Maria Vladimirovna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Алёхина, Мари́я Влади́мировна (Russian); Alyokhina, Maria (English transcription); Masha (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian artist and activist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1988
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow