Pussy Riot brings protest message to Mexico, shows support for families of 43 missing students

The Russian punk rock group, Pussy Riot, carried its message of protest to Mexico, voicing support for the relatives of the still unresolved disappearance of 43 student protesters who vanished more than a year ago.

The feminist activists Ksenia Zhivago and Maria Alyokhina made an appearance in Puebla, Mexico last week, attending an annual conference known as the City of Ideas, which hosts TED-style talks on arts, science, technology and innovation.

Speaking to a group of Mexican youngsters, Alyokhina offered up the group’s trademark statement of protest. “Your boss, your president, or even a God, cannot give you your freedom,” she told the attendees. “Freedom is something for which we have to fight.”

“If someone robs your freedom, tell them firstly ‘thank you’ and then ‘go fuck yourself,'” she added.

After the speech, several young woman jumped into the stage wearing the band’s signature neon-colored ski masks and started dancing to one of the collective’s punk rock songs.

“I feel free when I can shout Ayotzinapa lives!” shouted a woman on stage, referring to the missing students who were allegedly kidnapped and murdered last year by a criminal gang in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

Alyokhina and Zhivago later met with the Mexican branch of H.I.J.O.S., a human rights activist organization created in Argentina in 1995 by family members of those who disappeared during that country’s military dictatorship. In Mexico, H.I.J.O.S., along with other rights groups, has actively pushed for more answers from the government in the case of the missing students.

In September, a team of international experts questioned the Mexican government’s official account of the abduction and apparent massacre of the students.

During the meeting with H.I.J.O.S., the Russian activists held up a picture of missing Ayotzinapa student Alexander Mora Venancio as a sign of solidarity.

“We were surprised by the courage of the children of the disappeared and were surprised by the open support to the families,” the punk rockers told Mexican daily La Jornada.

The group said it had tried, but struggled in its efforts in Russia to raise awareness about the missing students and other causes.  They told la Jornada that in Russia it’s increasingly hard to have graffiti or other outward displays of protest. “The spaces for dissidence are closing,” the band members said.

Pussy Riot made worldwide headlines in 2012 for their “punk prayer” performance inside a Moscow cathedral with lyrics asking the Virgin Mary to chase Russian President Vladimir Putin away.

Three members of the group were arrested and imprisoned. The women were denied bail and faced up to seven years in prison, provoking an international outcry for their release.

They were freed in December 2013, less than two months before the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.