For some reason did I manage to deleat this post from this week by misstake. Here we go again.
MOSCOW
(Reuters) - Moscow police interrupted a play featuring the trial of punk
rockers Pussy Riot on Sunday and warned its Swiss director for violating visa
rules, in what a government critic said was part of an anti-Western campaign.
Pussy Riot supporters from all over the world support Pussy Riots mission for a free and democratic Russia
Federal
Migration Service officers delayed the performance of "Moscow Trials"
at a theatre at Moscow's Sakharov center for an hour as they issued a verbal
warning to director Milo Rau, according to news agency Interfax and website
Publicpost.ru .
The play
features three recent trials in Russia, including one which ended in August
with jail terms for ""hooliganism motivated by religious hatred"
for three members of the Pussy Riot band for staging a profanity-laced protest
in Moscow's main cathedral last February.
The band members,
one of whom was later released on appeal, said the protest was meant to draw
attention to close ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin.
Kremlin
critic Boris Nemtsov, a deputy prime minister from 1997 to 1998, said the raid
on the theatre was part of an anti-Western drive fostered by President Vladimir
Putin.
"Our
leadership is suffering a grave form of spymania ... and the fight against the
West has become a number one priority in its domestic and foreign
policies," he said.
Russia's
relations with the West have cooled since Putin returned to the presidency last
May.
On January
1, Russia banned adoptions of children by U.S. parents in response to U.S.
legislation imposing visa and asset restrictions on Russians accused of violating
human rights. Russia has also forced non-governmental organizations receiving
overseas funding to register themselves as "foreign agents".
The
migration officials raiding "Moscow Trials" were accompanied by
Cossacks, a traditionalist group whose recent revival has been encouraged by
Putin, according to Publicpost.ru and twitter reports from the scene.
No formal
punishment was imposed on Rau for allegedly violating visa conditions, Interfax
quoted Sergei Kalyuzhny, the Federal Migration Service's deputy head as saying.
"He
entered (Russia) on a business visa, which does not allow any working
activity," Kaluzhny said.
Putin's
return to the presidency last year was soured by the biggest political protest
over the past decade, which analysts say led the Kremlin to ramp up nationalist
rhetoric.
(Reporting
by Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by Jason Webb)
As it was posted on Punkrockers.com
