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| Militant/Chris Hoeppner |
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PHILADELPHIA — Some 700 students and workers attended a meeting at the University of Pennsylvania here March 17 to hear Maria Alyokhina (right) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, members of Pussy Riot imprisoned in Russia in 2012 for nearly two years for performing songs protesting the regime of Vladimir Putin. They showed two of their videos, “Punk Prayer,” for which they were incarcerated, and “I Can’t Breathe,” inspired by protests against the killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, by cop Daniel Pantaleo in 2014. “We came to New York to produce music against the war in the Ukraine but found ourselves among protesters against the killing of Eric Garner,” Alyokhina said. “Police violence exists in both countries.” Law enforcement believes they cannot be touched, but they should be touched, the Pussy Riot members explained. They encouraged people in the audience to get involved. The only thing you can do is speak out loud, as loud as you can, they said. In response to a worker from Walmart who described their fight for $15 and a union, Tolokonnikova said that in prison she worked sewing police uniforms and joined a hunger strike fighting to cut the workday to eight hours. |
| — CHRIS HOEPPNER |