Paralympia and Pussy Riot

Hi everyone!

Now, I said I was going to start updating this more often, and I intend to stick to that. I have two things to talk about today, and I'll start with Pussy Riot just because that was something I myself was involved with.

For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know, Pussy Riot is a feminist punk-rock band in Russia, who stage spontaneous performances in unusual locations, usually opposing President Vladimir Putin and their the Russian Orthodox Church. Back in February, Pussy Riot staged a punk prayer on the soleas of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, and after a video of their performance appeared online, three of their members (two of them mothers) were arrested and charged with hooliganism. They have just recently been sentenced to two years in jail, which needless to say I passionately disapprove of.

I don't care about the views of Pussy Riot, or the Russian Orthodox Church. The reason why I object to this is because everyone should have the opportunity to express themselves, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. To jail someone because of something like this is quite, quite wrong. On Friday I went on a demonstration to object to how Pussy Riot have been treated. The demonstration took the form of an impromptu performance in the Bear Pit in Bristol, and considering it was organised in only an hour, there were quite a lot of people there.

This demonstration was filmed and put on YouTube (I have embedded the link below). When you see this video, please please please share it with lots of people. Our aim is to make the video go viral, and hopefully people in Russia will see it. A lot of people will tell me that this is naive, idealistic and just won't work - but those people would also have said that it wouldn't have been possible to organise something as large scale as what we did on Friday in such a short space of time, and we managed to do that. The bare bones of the matter is, you cannot say what will work or not until you try it. I can't imagine that our video will become the next Charlie Bit My Finger or the next My Tram Experience, but I hope it will be seen by enough people to make everyone realise how much support Pussy Riot have. If you do just one good thing today, I'd like it to be sharing this video with your friends. Come on, do your bit! If you were in the position that these women are in at the moment, you would want the rest of the world to help out.

For some reason, Blogger isn't letting me embed, so I'll just have to post a link to the video. There is a petition in the info box on the YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fljvk3_PoVA

(Update: For some reason, this video has been taken down by the uploader, as the people who made it felt it looked too amateur. I'm not sure if they are going to re-edit it and put it up again, or if they're just going to leave it, but I hope the video of our demo reappears in some shape or form. I guess we'll have to wait and see...)

There is one more thing I want to talk about in this blog. Obviously the Olympics are over, and many people are now looking forward to the Paralympic Games - an amazing chance for many disabled athletes. I have recently read something quite shocking about the seating arrangements for the Games, which will start on August 29. Spectators who have a physical disability (such as wheelchair users) have to sit in a certain part of the venue that has been converted to suit their needs, and are only allowed to be accompanied by one accompanying adult. This means that many wheelchair-bound parents are being told that their children need to sit in a different part of the venue to them. In addition to this being completely unfeasible in many cases (Beth Davis-Hofbauer, who is the face of the campaign against this, has a four-year-old autistic son and a 19-year-old baby), it is blatantly discriminatory against disabled people, at the very thing which should be targeted more towards opportunities for people with disabilities. I don't really have any opinion on the Olympics, because it is not really relevant to my life. The Paralympics interest me more, because they are an opportunity to do something great for disabled sport. I am really shocked that the seating arrangements discriminate against disabled people. Each and every one of us is just one step away from being disabled - anyone can have an accident - and I think that a lot of the time, the rest of us forget about that, and don't really think of disabled people as real individuals. I try not to think like that, but I reckon a lot of people do.

Anyway, there is an online petition on change.org to persuade officials to change their seating arrangements so that wheelchair-bound users can enjoy the Paralympic Games with their families. Please sign it:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/international-paralympic-committee-london2012-review-ticketing-policy-for-wheelchair-users?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9645&alert_id=LiKtPYoCyW_mrkBBUWLVq

As regular readers of my blog know, I always reference someone that I respect and admire. This time, it's going to be Beth Davis-Hofbauer, the woman who created this petition about the Paralympic seating arrangements. She has had to cancel her tickets because her disability will make it impossible for her to go, and it takes guts to start a campaign on this level. The world needs more people like Beth.

More updates soon. Thanks for reading!

George