Am I missing something? The world has gone into overdrive in
protest about the sentences imposed on the members of Pussy Riot, turning the
whole episode into an issue of free speech and Russian tyranny. But isn't the
main point that they were sacrilegious and blasphemous - their act extremely
offensive to the religious amongst us? They did after all stage this "punk
prayer" against President Putin in front of the altar in Christ the
Savior, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow? Is no one outraged about that?
They have said that their protest was against the
endorsement of Putin by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch
Kirill, who has since seemingly "forgiven" the group, and asked the
authorities to show clemency to them. And they did apparently realise that
their act would be deeply offensive to millions of Russian Orthodox
worshippers. But did they realise how much further the shock waves
would travel.
The subsequent world-wide media hype seems to have largely
ignored, brushed aside, this religious aspect of what is admittedly a complex issue.
This whole incident does though beg the question: What would
have happened if, for whatever reason, the protests had been within a
mosque?
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