{"id":952,"date":"2012-08-18T12:56:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-18T18:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=952"},"modified":"2012-08-18T12:56:27","modified_gmt":"2012-08-18T18:56:27","slug":"jailhouse-rock-pussy-riot-found-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/jailhouse-rock-pussy-riot-found-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Jailhouse Rock: Pussy Riot Found Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In case you haven’t heard, members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years in prison for,\u00a0“hooliganism driven by religious hatred.” The trial and sentencing of the three Russian women has attracted attention and outrage from around the world. Amnesty International and other supporters of free speech and human rights have declared them “prisoners of\u00a0conscience.” According to USA Today<\/em>,<\/p>\n

The three were arrested in March after a guerrilla performance in Moscow’s main cathedral, high-kicking and dancing while singing a “punk prayer” pleading the Virgin Mary\u00a0to save Russia from\u00a0Vladimir Putin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Several celebrities have spoken out in support of Pussy Riot. Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, as well as Paul McCartney and Madonna have expressed support for the rights of the performers. Russia does not have the same level of protection for speech that we appreciate. \u00a0Thanks to the 1st Amendment to the US\u00a0Constitution, US citizens have much more freedom to speak our minds than do most other citizens of the world.<\/p>\n

But we also want to be careful that free speech rights do not infringe on the rights of others. Hate speech is one of those sensitive areas where, even in America, free speech sometimes has to take a back seat. But who gets to decide that a specific act of speech crosses the line into hate speech and, in so doing, forfeits the rights of the speaker to protection under the law? That’s a question that many are asking in light of this sentence.<\/p>\n

Update Aug 20: In an unusual twist, Madonna is being sued for over $10M by concert goers who “were offended by her support for gay rights during a recent concert in St. Petersburg.” See more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you haven’t heard, members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years in prison for,\u00a0“hooliganism driven by religious hatred.” The trial and sentencing of the three Russian women has attracted attention and outrage from around the world. Amnesty International and other supporters of free speech and human rights … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Jailhouse Rock: Pussy Riot Found Guilty”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,18,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment","category-music","category-politics","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}