Pussy Riot and the Chess Champion

[jake-the-peg]

Gary Kasparov has just been arrested outside the court where the "Pussy Riot" women were just found guilty.

Video of him being dragged off in the middle of a TV interview- demanding to know why he was being arrested

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...world-africa-19300149

Anybody else think the Russians are doing their international image no good at all or is this a no-nonsense police force that knows how to keep law and order ?

[douglas9401]

Hearing Sarah Montague utter the words "pussy riot" brightened my day. :)

[anotheoldgit]

/// F--K -FF
Clue: What you should do. ///

Gromit you must learn not to stop up on AnswerBank until the early hours of the morning, you know it makes you use bad language in your irritable state.

[Kromovaracun]

Seeing as I don't see many people answering Jake's question...

"Anybody else think the Russians are doing their international image no good at all or is this a no-nonsense police force that knows how to keep law and order ? "

Well, both. As others have said, the Russian government does not seem to care all that much for its international image. And yes, the Russian police force is fairly no-nonsense (whatever that means, although the hunger strikes by the accused seem to have been quite effective). And yes, 'law and order' are kept pretty much intact if you happen to be someone outside the state apparatus (of course, law enforcement is a different matter if you have influential friends or you know who to bribe.)

Personaly, I don't see any innate problem with what PR did - it's important to blaspheme and to be allowed to do so, but they were not protesting about blasphemy or even necessarily about religion: they were protesting about Putin's campaign for re-election, and the support the church has quite enthusiastically given his thuggish regime.

Why do I bring it up? Because I think that's the reason why Kasparov was arrested - had this event been purely about the issue of blasphemy and religion (which incidentally is how the arrest of PR has been spun and I'm sad to see some ABers have quite happily gobbled up), I'm doubtful that Kasparov would have been taken anything like as quickly as he was. But it wasn't - Pussy Riot's stunt was a political demonstration, and Kasparov was attempting to treat it like one. That undermines the efforts made by the Russian gvt's spin doctors to present it as just about blasphemy and offence. In my view, that's why he was arrested.

[ichkeria]

Absolutely right kromovaracum. As I said before the blasphemy and religious hatred' charges are just a smokescreen not related to the breaking isms any actual law. Otherwise known as persecution.
Going back to Jake's original question again: it's worth bearing in mind that elections are not far off and Putin's popularity rate is falling. He benefits from a large, core of conservative voters in 'middle Russia' i.e. Poor, non-Muscovite or St Petersburg Russia to for whom, he probably reasons, this sort of 'firm action' plays very well. And all the opposition to it is portrayed on mainstream Russian tv as being from the west. So it looks as though it's nasty foreigners trying to interfere. Such considerations plainly override concern about image abroad. Whether that's a wise gamble as far as he's concerned is another matter

[Quizmonster]

StarBeast, you may recall how Tories whined on endlessly about Gordon Brown and how he was "an unelected Prime Minister"...or maybe not; I don't know how old you are. Well, Cameron has been in precisely the same position - as was John Major - for over two years.
Major and Brown came into their positions because of the departure of an already-serving Prime Minister, but Cameron got there after a general election. The problem for you is that, after a general election, an "elected Prime Minister" must be one whose party gained an overall majority of seats. The Tories didn't.

[Quizmonster]

My apologies for my response above. I appear to have put it in entirely the wrong thread!

[mike11111]

Since 1935, the list of "unelected" Prime Ministers (those who had not led their party to victory at the polls at the time of first appointment) includes Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and James Callaghan, in addition to those who have already been cited. Hardly a rare phenomenon, then.

[Quizmonster]

Ah, I see what happened...when I got to the bottom of Page 1, I simply did not see that there were pages 2, 3 and 4 already in existence. Accordingly, my answer was appropriate but rather late! Nevertheless, it might still be worthwhile for StarBeast to read it regarding his earlier queries.

[Quizmonster]

I certainly did not claim it was a rare phenomenon. Given that most of the people you list, Mike, were Tories, I'm surprised that it was the Tories and their gutter press who were so adamant in their condemnation of Brown!