Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

An incident in high-profile civil disobedience in Egypt, where court actions and death sentences against citizen protests have been the focus of international controversy, this week struck a new parallel with the case of Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan in a New York court, which I commented on in my previous blog post. http://vivoonwarpeaceandjustice.blogspot.com.ar/2014/05/the-american-pussy-riot.html   The incident that I refer to is the sentencing of Mahienour El-Massry—sometimes dubbed “the voice of the Egyptian revolution” and a renowned defender of the rights of Egypt’s women—to two years in prison for protesting against recent violations of human and civil rights. A 28-year-old lawyer, Mahienour was tried and convicted of taking part in an unauthorized demonstration and of violating the country’s so-called Protest Law. The conviction refers to a December 3, 2013 protest demonstration in Alexandria that was broken up by police using tear gas and baton charges. ...

Pussy Riot members Naezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina The visit earlier this month of two of Russia’s Pussy Riot members to Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillian—who is in Riker’s Island jail in New York awaiting sentencing this coming Monday (May 19) for striking a police officer—sent out a symbolic message about some disturbing similaries between the standards for freedom of expression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and in post-9/11 New York City. The incident in which Cecily has been tried and convicted took place on March 17, 2012 (Saint Patrick’s Day). It occurred during the eviction of protesters by New York City police from Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district. The park was the scene of a prolonged sit-in demonstration, which spread to other major cities across the country, organized by Americans fed up with the kind of complicity between big business and government that led to the 2007 stock market crash and subsequent Federal bailout—a multi-bi...