Bizarre as it seems, two prominent Malaysian NGOs have something
in common with Pussy Riot – the support of the US National Endowment for
Democracy.
WHO loves Pussy Riot? Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sting are in the long list of celebrities supporting the so-called Russian feminist punk rock outfit.
But Madonna appears to have made the biggest impact with her brazen display of endorsement.
Midway through her 1984 hit Like a Virgin during a concert in Moscow last month, she stripped to exhibit the words “Pussy Riot” written across her back.
Her show did little to prevent three members of the group – Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – from being jailed for two years.
They were found guilty of hooliganism and inciting religious hatred in an orthodox Moscow cathedral.
There has been much global media frenzy over their perceived persecution.The international condemnation has come from Amnesty International, the White House, the European Union, the British and German governments and an assortment of human rights groups.
Among the latest to join the chorus are Yoko Ono, wife of ex-Beatle John Lennon, and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The story as being spun by the mainstream global media is that of three young innocent women who were merely expressing their freedom being jailed by the dissent-silencing president Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB, remember?) and as such, need the support from all the outraged freedom-loving, justice-seeking and human rights-embracing people of the world.
After presenting the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace award to Tolokonnikova’s husband, Ono said: “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.”
Oh yeah? Let’s look at what they did to earn such an honour. On Feb 21, they stormed the altar of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour wearing balaclavas and bright outfits to “perform” what has been reported as a “punk prayer to the Virgin Mary”.
In reality, it was a grossly blasphemous parody of a Latin hymn, the English lyrics of which read: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts
Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest
What they yelled during their “performance” was this:
Holy s***, s***, Lord’s s***! Holy s***, s***, Lord’s s***! St Maria, Virgin, become a feminist ...*Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin *(The Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, whose secular name is Vladimir Gundyaev)
B****, you better believe in God!
The group is an offshoot of another known as “Voina”, or “War” in Russian, which has since 2008 staged several offensively shocking events in the name of “performance art”, including painting a mural of a penis on a bridge, having group sex in a museum, throwing live cats at workers of a McDonald’s outlet, overturning of police cars and firebombing buildings. They also stole a chicken from a supermarket and performed a lewd act with it.
It’s highly doubtful that the information would be revealed by the Western media when the case comes up for appeal on Oct 1.
Imagine the repercussions if such a group entered a mosque, church, or a Hindu or Buddhist temple in Malaysia to similarly “express their freedom”.
People who commit such acts in the US or in most European countries would also be arrested, charged and jailed, so what’s the big deal about these women?
For one thing, they seem to have powerful backers, in the form of the US National Endowment for Democracy.
Yes, the same entity supporting Bersih and Suaram, which is now being probed over its sources of foreign funding.
According to conspirazzi.com, Pussy Riot and Voina have open links to the NED through Oksana Chelysheva, who is deputy executive director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society funded by the NED and George Soros-funded outfits.
The NED was created in 1983, seemingly as a non-profit-making organisation to promote human rights and democracy but as its first president Allen Weinstein admitted to The Washington Post in 1991, a lot of what it does overtly used to be done covertly by the CIA.
In the words of ex-CIA officer Ralph McGeehee, it subsidises and influences elections, political parties, think tanks, academia, publishers, media and labour, religious, women’s and youth groups.
Russia has since introduced a new Bill to label NGOs that get foreign funds and are involved in politics as “foreign agents”, with their accounts subject to public scrutiny.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, says the US, too, has laws which require foreign interests to register as foreign agents but this does not always apply to all Israeli lobby groups.
“There are no political parties in the US that are funded by foreign interests. No such thing would be permitted. It would be regarded as high treason,” he was quoted as saying by Pravda.
So, if outsiders are not allowed to fund and interfere in US politics, why should we allow its agencies to meddle in ours?
ALONG THE WATCHTOWER
By M. VEERA PANDIYAN
> Associate Editor M. Veera Pandiyan sees the wisdom in this quote from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
WHO loves Pussy Riot? Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sting are in the long list of celebrities supporting the so-called Russian feminist punk rock outfit.
But Madonna appears to have made the biggest impact with her brazen display of endorsement.
Midway through her 1984 hit Like a Virgin during a concert in Moscow last month, she stripped to exhibit the words “Pussy Riot” written across her back.
Her show did little to prevent three members of the group – Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – from being jailed for two years.
They were found guilty of hooliganism and inciting religious hatred in an orthodox Moscow cathedral.
There has been much global media frenzy over their perceived persecution.The international condemnation has come from Amnesty International, the White House, the European Union, the British and German governments and an assortment of human rights groups.
Among the latest to join the chorus are Yoko Ono, wife of ex-Beatle John Lennon, and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The story as being spun by the mainstream global media is that of three young innocent women who were merely expressing their freedom being jailed by the dissent-silencing president Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB, remember?) and as such, need the support from all the outraged freedom-loving, justice-seeking and human rights-embracing people of the world.
After presenting the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace award to Tolokonnikova’s husband, Ono said: “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.”
Oh yeah? Let’s look at what they did to earn such an honour. On Feb 21, they stormed the altar of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour wearing balaclavas and bright outfits to “perform” what has been reported as a “punk prayer to the Virgin Mary”.
In reality, it was a grossly blasphemous parody of a Latin hymn, the English lyrics of which read: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts
Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest
What they yelled during their “performance” was this:
Holy s***, s***, Lord’s s***! Holy s***, s***, Lord’s s***! St Maria, Virgin, become a feminist ...*Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin *(The Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, whose secular name is Vladimir Gundyaev)
B****, you better believe in God!
The group is an offshoot of another known as “Voina”, or “War” in Russian, which has since 2008 staged several offensively shocking events in the name of “performance art”, including painting a mural of a penis on a bridge, having group sex in a museum, throwing live cats at workers of a McDonald’s outlet, overturning of police cars and firebombing buildings. They also stole a chicken from a supermarket and performed a lewd act with it.
It’s highly doubtful that the information would be revealed by the Western media when the case comes up for appeal on Oct 1.
Imagine the repercussions if such a group entered a mosque, church, or a Hindu or Buddhist temple in Malaysia to similarly “express their freedom”.
People who commit such acts in the US or in most European countries would also be arrested, charged and jailed, so what’s the big deal about these women?
Yes, the same entity supporting Bersih and Suaram, which is now being probed over its sources of foreign funding.
According to conspirazzi.com, Pussy Riot and Voina have open links to the NED through Oksana Chelysheva, who is deputy executive director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society funded by the NED and George Soros-funded outfits.
The NED was created in 1983, seemingly as a non-profit-making organisation to promote human rights and democracy but as its first president Allen Weinstein admitted to The Washington Post in 1991, a lot of what it does overtly used to be done covertly by the CIA.
In the words of ex-CIA officer Ralph McGeehee, it subsidises and influences elections, political parties, think tanks, academia, publishers, media and labour, religious, women’s and youth groups.
Russia has since introduced a new Bill to label NGOs that get foreign funds and are involved in politics as “foreign agents”, with their accounts subject to public scrutiny.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, says the US, too, has laws which require foreign interests to register as foreign agents but this does not always apply to all Israeli lobby groups.
“There are no political parties in the US that are funded by foreign interests. No such thing would be permitted. It would be regarded as high treason,” he was quoted as saying by Pravda.
So, if outsiders are not allowed to fund and interfere in US politics, why should we allow its agencies to meddle in ours?
By M. VEERA PANDIYAN
> Associate Editor M. Veera Pandiyan sees the wisdom in this quote from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
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Foreign funding for political purposes in Malaysia
