Last February, five members of the Russian feminist punk-rock collective, Pussy Riot performed a 'punk prayer' next to the main altar of Mosco's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, that is not open to anyone but a priest..... A video of the incident can be seen below, where their faces masked with colourful stylish balaclavas sang a song wth an obscene chorus, appearing to mock Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and apparently savaging Vladimir Putin. 3 were subsequently arrested and charged with hooliganism ( Nadya Tolokonnikova, Maria Alehina and Yekaterina Samusevich) a little bit over the top in my opinion and leave Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church up for more mockery, if they take away the freedom from Pussy Riot. Blind moral panics about , I suppose are nothing new...... going back to the witch hunts and the dawning of punk and rock and roll.......
PUSSY RIOT have said that " we realized that this country needs a militant, punk-feminist, street band that will rip through Moscow's streets and squares, mobilise public energy against the evil crooks of the Putinist Junya and enrich the Russian cultural and political opposition with themes that are important to us: gender and LGBT rights, problems of masculine conformity, absence of a daring message on the musical art scenes, andthe domination of males in all areas of public discourse."http://www.vice.com/read?A-Russian-Pussy-Riot I say amen to that.
Yesterday over 30 supporters were arrested outside a Moscow City Court theyare facing a possible jail term of up to seven years...... supporters include prominent artists, muscicians and activists, organised a protest festival outside the court, where a carnival atmosphere took place..... with people carrying balloons and chanting the words ' freedom', before things decended into chaos.The band members were refused bail and will be kept in jail until June 24.
A PussyRiot Supporter yesterday
Putin does have a sense of humour I suppose and is unlikely to be upset at being lampooned in a punk song. What's more worrying is that the Orthodox Church appears to be saying that the event should be treated more seriously because it took place inside a church. Normally this sort of incident would attract a maximum six month sentence. Freedom of expression should be defended and more importantly the Orthodox Church should not be above criticism. Please go to the following link and send message to President Putin asking him to intervene in this case to secure the release of the women and to pardon them if they are convicted. http://eng.letters.kremlin.ru/
French company Atos which has a £108 million per year contract with the government, in shocking news has failed to remove grossly missleading claims from its website, depite being ordered to do so by the Advertising Standards Authority http://www.asa.org.uk/ASA-action/Adjudications/2012/4/Atos-IT-Services-UK-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_180372.aspx ..... Their very fussy about their image, and like bullies can display a willful arrogance... their dodgy figures boast that
" Each year Atos Healthcare process over 1.2 million referrals for medical advice completing over 800,000 face-to-face medical assessments within our nationwide network of over 140 medical examination centres.' " All our 1700 + healthcare professionals are fully trained to undertake disability assessments."
But Freedom of Infomation requests by the website WhyWaitForever.comhttp://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatoslettersgasa.htmlreveal that referrals averaged 751,000 per year and the number of healthcare professionals was just 848 - far less than claimed by Atos....... those bunch of *****.
Atos has refused to cooperate with the ASA investigation, and despite being ordered to make changes to theseunsubstntiated claims, the material is still up their on their websitehttp://www.atoshealthcare.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=23&Itemid=294 ... They also have a history of trying to silence their critics and last year forced a thriving support forum for disabled people to shut down after users had the bravery to critisise the company.http://www.latentexistence.me.uk/atos-moves-to-shut-down-criticism/..... In the real world, round my place, the word Atos is enough to put the fear in all and sundry and if I was not a nervous wreck in the first place, well I sure am, after just one whiff of the afformentioned.
And this story does not end there, yesterday's TheGuardian website had the headline "Disability right protesters bring Trafalgar Square traffic to a standstill, it was all over facebook and the internet media as well but watching the BBC news last night... nothing there, they'd rather tell us a little bit more about the bloody jubilee, not a report on hown the hardest hit are beginning to find it difficult out there, and the reasons why, and Atos's involvement......
Disabled protester at London Demonstration.
source The Guardian
Atos they really do care though.....I read that somewhere, on their website I suppose.....but many people up and down the country are unhappy with the treatment they have recieved from ATOs, who have been shown time and time again to be making huge numbers of flawed decisions, part of the growing misery for profit culture that we are getting from David Cameron's we definitely are not in it altogether government...... so it's a shame the BBC has been silent, but hey, their licence is up for renewal, and they want to bury bad news .... friend went for appeal theother day.... the assessment was over in less than 30 minutes! He didn't say much.... just nodded...... he was so bloody frightened, in 2010/11 their were 127,000 ESA tribunals...... working out at 350 per day..... of these, 47,600 were successful, ie, the client won! That's 37%, or 130 per day.... that's the numberof times ATOS have got things wrong.http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/tribs-stats/annual-tribunals-statistics-2010-11.pdf It would be nice to see the BBC reporting details like this.... but their probably scheduling a programme on stereotypical benefit cheats or lovely police people with smiley cameras. Oh and its's goin to get far worse George Osbourn has also mentioned that a new Comprhensive Spending Review would be tasked with finding between £10-11bn more savings in Welfare spending so a lot more work for ATOS or whoever is the scrupulous!! profitering operator by then, anyone heard of Serco http://www.serco.com/, such quality, the wonderful principles they bring to the world ...... think I've worn myself out, and will have to go for lie down, but even though the government does not care and the BBC is playing it safe...... their are good folks out their, who offer a bit of hope.... this link is particularly useful .... ever tried ringing ATOS.... it will take you quite a while....http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/home ..... Oh and ATOS if you're watching no malicious intent, just some honesty.
Today marks the occasion of Palestine Prisoners Day. It will see the Palestinian prisoners movement launching the Karamah (Dignity strike). They hope to place the oppressive nature of the Israeli state under the spotlight once again. In a brave move, highlighting the strength of Palestinian resistance to occupation, 1600 will embark on an indefinite strike demanding their basic rights as political detainess.
The Israeli state was created in May 1948, by a violent occupation of the land of the Palestinian people. This has been combined by a systematic policy of expulsion, persecution against the Palestinian people. Also since 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem as a result of the six-Day War, the West bank and the Gaza Strip, some 700,000 Palestinians have seen the daylight from behind the walls of Israel's prisons, which works out at about 20% of the total population of the Palestinian authority. Israel seems to deny the Palestinians their very existence, and their most basic rights: land, housing, education and health. In the Palestinian authority practically every person has a relative or acquaintance that has spent or is spending time in an Israeli prison. They are considered by the Palestinian people to be freedom fighters, whether they are members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other Palestinian organisation.
The "courts" of the occupation are part and parcel of this denial of Palestinian existence. All forms of dissent are criminalised and there are thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. Also confessions allegedly obtained by duress are accepted as evidence, and Palestines in the Occupied Territories are subjected to Israeli military law, while Israel's ilgal settlers are governed by Israel Civil Law, a clear example of an aparthid system. And many would consider the Occupied Territories themselves as one giant prison camp.
It is in this context that Palestinian political prisoners, including children, will atempt to break this silence, willing to die in order to highlight this daily reality of their lives. The majority of the 4,600 Palestinians have refused their meals today, while 1,200 of them promise to hunger strike indefinitely. Israel also still uses administrative detention, a legislation that dates back to British protectionl of the region. This procedure allows Israel to detain suspects indefinitely without charges being made against them, simply by repeating the implied 6 month periods of detention time after time.
Today is specially symbolic, because it is also the day that Israel release Khader Adnan, who himself spent 66 days on hunger strike.
They have many from the international community on their side, hopefully questioning the impunity of the Israeli state and their own governments involvement, sanding together and expressing their solidarity. Already their have been rallies worlwide to support them with detained activists from the 'Welcome to Palestine' flytilla joining them on hunger strike in solidarity. Hopefully the issue of the Palestinian prisoners will be revived, and they are not simply forgotten, and Israels violations against them will continue to be exposed, personally I support their struggle as part of a universal struggle for human rights, respect and dignity.
Art is an important part of life. Friday was the anniversary of the death of Carlo Carra, the Italian Futurist painter, who tried to imbue his panting with movement and life.
At their best his pictures literally glow on the canvas,, he stated off in life as an anarchist, though unfortunately by the end of his life he had drifted far away from this pulse and had swapped it for an ideology of coldness and reactionary political views, but his art I can't really disagree with, and it is this that lives on.
