An Award and More Support for Pussy Riot

September 21, 2012, 4:34 pm

By MELENA RYZIK

The husband of a jailed member of Pussy Riot, the Russian punk activist group, received an award from Yoko Ono and Amnesty International in New York on Friday. Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, accepted the LennonOno Grant for Peace from Ms. Ono at Liberty Hall in the Ace Hotel. Actually, Mr. Verzilov's and Ms. Tolokonnikova's daughter, 4-year-old Gara, accepted the glass sculpture, twirling with it in her pink velveteen dress.

“I thank Pussy Riot in standing firmly in their belief for freedom of expression and making all women of the world proud to be women,” Ms. Ono said. She bestows the biennial award in honor of her late husband, John Lennon; other honorees this year include the writer Christopher Hitchens; Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003; and the author and activist John Perkins, along with the Russian group. In August three members of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in jail on charges of hooliganism and inciting religious hatred, months after they performed a brief “punk prayer” against President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral, in a case that attracted global attention.

“It's an incredible injustice that they were just put in jail because they exercise freedom of speech,” Ms. Ono, in a scarf patterned with peace symbols, said in an interview after the ceremony.  “We just have to work on it and make sure they are released as soon as possible.”

Asked what she thought of the group's music, Ms. Ono said: “Well, it's fine. You see, musically we all have certain taste and judgment, that's not that imp ortant. What the music says is more important.” (“Whatever it is, music is sound, sound is music, and it's vibration, helping the world,” she added.)

The executive director of Amnesty International USA, Suzanne Nossel, said that Pussy Riot had been a galvanizing force for young activists, especially after Amnesty International labeled its members “prisoners of conscience” when they were arrested in March. “It's partly because they're young and their medium is artistic,” she said. “They defy the stereotype of ‘prisoner of conscience' of yore, at least in how they look.”

“Our student members are passing out colorful balaclavas,” Pussy Riot's mask symbol, “on campus,” she continued, “and organizing. It's spoken to the next generation in a powerful way.”

Mr. Verzilov said he had shared with his imprisoned wife stories of teenage girls motivated to protest in support of Pussy Riot. “She was amazed and happy by that,” he said. “It's like, wow â€" Pussy Riot is not exactly Justin Bieber, so having some teenagers have this kind of aspiration is incredible.”

Fluent in English, with a background in performance art, Mr. Verzilov has emerged as de facto spokesman for the group, which has as many as 20 anonymous members on its “creative team,” he said. Accompanied by their lawyers, a videographer and others, he and his daughter have been in the United States for several days, first in Washington, where he met Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy advocate and Nobel Laureate, in a town hall organized by Amnesty International. He also met with Congressional leaders and White House staff members, he said in an interview on Thursday. Pussy Riot has been savvy and active in promoting its cause, including the sending of a letter to Madonna that resulted in her speaking out in favor of the group and inviting several of its members backstage at her concert in Moscow.

Now, Mr. Verzilov s aid, he and other Pussy Riot supporters are focused on an Oct. 1 appeal in Moscow city court, though he added, “we think it will not change much,” perhaps only reduce the sentence by a few months. Beyond that the group would eventually like the judge, prosecutors and other legal parties responsible for putting his wife and her cohorts Ekaterina Samusevich and Maria Alekinaaway to be tried themselves, he said.

“We hope to bring these people to stand up before the law inside Russia,” he said, as part of their broader vision for change. “The goal is for people in Russia and for people in other countries to take up a very loud and effective stance against their own government it they feel government is doing something wrong,” he said. “Feminist values,” gay and lesbian rights and “artistic integrity” are also part of the Pussy Riot agenda, he said.

Back at home in Moscow, Mr. Verzilov is able to communicate with his wife through letters delivered by lawyers, and through a heavily censored e-mail exchange set up by the Russian prison system. After the appeal, the women â€" who are currently in a special, closely watched wing of a detention center, with cellmates who Mr. Verzilov believes may be government informants â€" are expected to be transferred to penal colonies in Mordovia, a central part of the country with a history of brutal gulags. “Nadya will supposedly be transferred to the most infamous penal colony,” he said.

His daughter recently saw her mother for the first time in six months. “It was very emotional,” he said. “For one and a half hours, Gara told her how she missed her, told her about the drawings she made, and Nadya told Gara about all the games she made up while she was in prison.”

His wife and the other women “are a bit worried about how the conditions will be in the penal colony,” Mr. Verzilov acknowledged. But he added: “They are strong as ever. To many people, it's been a great and powerful inspiration.”

At the Ace Hotel, Mr. Verzilov and his daughter were surrounded by TV cameras, and he expected to give many interviews and have many meetings before leaving the city on Monday; his lawyers were also to give a lecture at New York University's law school, he said. But he, too, was eager to persevere, he said, sitting on a leather couch after the ceremony, while his daughter played nearby.

“I've been doing political art and various types of political activism in Russia for some time, and it trains you,” he said. “Because obviously, doing these activities in Russia does require some sort of stamina.”