Pussy Riot supporters are Russophobes with totalitarian mentality - WRPC

MOSCOW. Aug 18 (Interfax) - The World Russian People's Council (WRPC) believes the debate triggered by the stunt carried out by Pussy Riot n the Cathedral of Christ the Savior revealed the intolerance and lack of democracy in the liberal community worldwide.

"Defenders of the infamous group justified, glorified and even called on people to repeat their clear hooliganism only because it was targeted against the Church. This indicates serious moral problems in the influential part of the global liberal community and shows that the principles of tolerance and freedom of conscience they declare are very far from their real goals," WRPC said in a statement obtained by Interfax-Religion on Wednesday.

WRPC is an international public organization. It was created in 1993. In 2005 it was granted special consultative status in the UN.

WRPC members are alarmed about the large-scale international campaign launched by Western politicians and culture figures in support of "ordinary hooligans."

"It is noteworthy that protests in support of Pussy Riot, which their organizers said were aimed against the injustice of the Russian judicial (and, in a broader sense, political) system, were not conducted at Russian embassies, but were aimed at desecrating Orthodox churches (in Vienna, Helsinki, etc.). Obviously, organizers of such protests were inspired by dislike of the Christian Church and Russophobia, not love for freedom," the document says.

WRPC believes it is highly important that the Pussy Riot activists have been found guilty of a crime.

"It had to be confirmed in public that deliberate desecration of holy places, insulting people's religious feelings, and manifestation of hatred of Orthodox Christians is a crime, not 'a creative act.' An acquittal, on which the defense lawyers insisted, would have confirmed that any atheist has a right to perpetrate any 'creative blasphemy' with impunity," the document says.

WRPC finds the attempts made by some members of the Russian and foreign liberal public to glorify the actions taken by Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, an Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and present them as 'martyrs' are "extremely regrettable."

"The entire story of this group, including the public sexual act in the Zoological Museum, looks like a series of cynical provocations against public morals. Manifesting solidarity with the organizers and perpetrators of such actions is just indecent and incompatible with the status of a cultured person," WRPC said in its statement.

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