SHOUTS - Music from the Rooftops!

Pussy Riot in collaboration with Las Tesis have released a new single condemning police brutality, which seems only fitting to share now in memory of George Floyd and everyone else that has fallen victim to the brutal hand of the law.

Las Tesis, a feminist art collective from Chile, recently become famous for creating the choreography and protest song ‘A Rapist In Your Path’ which became a massive protest sensation around the whole world in 2019.

In their online manifesto Pussy Riot write:

“May 2020. Either we organize ourselves or we perish. We are facing an unprecedented escalation of state brutality and repression. And with it, the historic opportunity to set it all on fire.”

Furthermore, on the Pussy Riot YouTube page, the collective goes on saying: “Make social workers being in charge of the police institution. Their goals should be to help people to deal with social and economical problems, not to punish them and kill for no reason, as they just killed George Floyd in the US. The government and the police are our servants. Too often they forget about it and think that it’s us who’re here to serve them.

5 STEPS FOR POLICE FROM PUSSY RIOT

1. Refocus police forces towards protection of the civilians instead of oppression and violent suppression of our rights to express and demand what our communities need.

2. We are here to hold the police forces accountable for every act of violence against civilians. Nothing will go unnoticed.

3. We demand that if the police show up at the demonstration, they protect our right to speak our minds freely, act respectfully and peacefully.

4. We are the many, they are the few. We stand together with Chilean protesters, we are women who want to be safe while marching for female rights with Las Tesis. We express our solidarity with Argentinian, Chilean, Mexican, Colombian, Brazilian, Peruvian, and all Latin American sisters and street fighters who only want to have a damn right to be in charge of their bodies and their reproductive system (but only get police batons in response).

5. Police forces in Latin America and Russia need to be urgently re-trained to focus on protecting women’s rights, LQBTQ+ community, and the rights of alternatively able people.”

Cover photo taken from the YouTube video ‘MANIFESTO AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE / RIOT x LASTESIS’

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It has been almost 6 months now since people of Hong Kong started protesting their own government and its corrupt relationship with China. It started with an extradition bill in relation to China but now the protests continue against police violence and government corruption.

People have been hurt, people have died and a lot of people are angry. The anger is no wonder, when Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997 from a colonizing, far away government (the UK), the island got a certain autonomy that included having their own currency, free press and speech, their unique culture and more.

This was to no liking to China. And so the relationship between the two has been intense ever since. Hong Kong are standing their ground because they want to keep their autonomy, their heritage and their values and be separate from the mainland behemoth that is China.

New Video: Taiwanese Rapper Dwagie Supporting Hong Kong Protesters

Music has played a big part in the recent protests in Hong Kong. People have chanted together, in the thousands, songs of democracy and unity. Hong Kong is different from China. People everywhere want to keep their freedom and just as people in China are oppressed Hong Kong citizens want to hold on to their democracy – and not become part of the authoritarian mainland.