Russian punk rockers Pussy Riot have released a new song, “I Can’t Breathe” about Eric Garner and the larger issues of police brutality and suffering under the yolk of oppression. It’s something they know about first hand, of course. Members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova famously spent nearly two years in a Russian prison for a protesting Putin at a Moscow cathedral.
“This song is for Eric and for all those from Russia to America and around the globe who suffer from state terror — killed, choked, perished because of war and state sponsored violence of all kinds- for political prisoners and those on the streets fighting for change. We stand in solidarity,” reads a short statement accompanying the new song’s main video.
Eric Garner, of course, is the Staten Island man who died last summer after New York Police Department officer placed him in an apparent chokehold. “I can’t breathe” were Garner’s last words, repeated and captured on video.
The video has Alekhina and Tolokonnikova being buried alive wearing Russian riot police uniforms. “Illegal violence in the name of the state kills not only its victims, but those who are chosen to carry out these actions,” they said. “Policemen, soldiers, agents, they become hostages and are buried with those they kill, both figuratively and literally.”
“I Can’t Breathe” also features a dramatic reading of the last words of Eric Garner. Those words resonated with Pussy Riot:
“We really could not breathe for this whole last year,” they said to BuzzFeed News. “Our previous ideas did not speak to what was happening in the conflict zone in Ukraine as we were realizing that Russia is burying itself alive in terms of the rest of the world. Committing suicide. Daily.”
(via Towleroad, The Guardian)
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