Previz #77 - Candlelight Vigil - I Rez, Therefore I Am

• Document • Media • Previz •

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Activity No.2 – Candlelight Vigil for Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
Red Square, Virtual Moscow, Second Life.
• Monday 30 September 6pm PDT /
• Tuesday 1 October 1am GMT / 05:00 Moscow Standard Time
SL-URL: Moscow Island/150/169/21
Chat: In-World & iRez.me/chat
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Please join us in Virtual Red Square to support Comrade Tolokonnikova. Wear anything you’d like. If you’d like a balaclava or Pussy Riot t-shirt, you can get them free at the Asylum in Your Embassy avatar apparel shop. Bring a candle. We’ll also try to have a supply of candles to pass out.

Time Zones

Monday 30 Sep, 6pm PDT / Tuesday 1 Oct, 5am MST
Here is a translation table for other time zones.
Be sure to click on the “Activity No.2” tab for the correct times!
Please leave a comment below if any time zones are wrong, or if you’d like us to add any others.

Context

On Monday 23 September 2013 (yes, that shitty, freedom-hating year again) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Russian patriot and inmate at the worst of Stalin’s Soviet-era labor camps, IK-14 women’s penal colony in the Republic of Mordovia, began a hunger strike in protest of the horrific conditions there. On Tuesday officials moved her to solitary confinement. On Thursday they took away or altered her access to water. On Friday she was moved to the prison hospital.

After 100 years of torturing women, will Tolokonnikova finally change conditions in this inhuman facility?

Will Tolokonnikova’s ultimate price for her 40-second protest against Vladimir Putin be the loss of her 23-year-old life?

Both?

2013 started sucking on 11 January with the loss of Aaron Swartz. Last month, on August 21 Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years for telling the truth. London police have surrounded the Ecuadorian embassy every day of 2013. Ai Weiwei has managed to stay out of prison in 2013, but he does seem at least a bit more cautious. And who knows how many future Ai Weiwei’s have heard their government’s chilling message loud and clear.

What of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova?

Outlook

4 months ago, in May 2013, Tolokonnikova’s bandmate Maria Alyokhina went on a hunger strike that lasted 11 days. Prison officials at the IK-32 penal colony in Perm eventually met Alyokhina’s demands. IK-32 is generally considered to have reasonable conditions. It has not had human rights complaints. Among other activities there, inmates are re-trained to become digital cartoon animators. By contrast, IK-14 in Mordovia is the worst of Stalin’s “Gulags.” Will Tolokonnikova’s hunger strike end well? We can hope. But it is difficult to be optimistic.