Pussy Riot Play Raided

Russian immigration officials backed by a posse of police and Cossacks raided Moscow’s Sakharov Center March 3, breaking up rehearsals for a play about the Pussy Riot trials.

They reportedly quizzed Swiss theater director Milo Rau, who also wrote “Moscow Trials,” about his visa and work permits.

“My impression was that they had absolutely no plan – they just wanted to interrupt it and helplessly searched for a reason,” Rau said. “It was more Kafka than Stalin.”

He said the raid quickly petered out when it turned out his visa was in order and it was the warrant the officials were using that had the wrong address on it.

He explained how the raid was led by the immigration officials, quickly followed by a group of irate Cossacks – a group that claims to be descended from a once-feared Tsarist-era paramilitary group – who said they were offended by the play.

Then came the Moscow police, which later told the Russian news service that its officers had been sent to the Sakharov Centre to ensure law and order and had not witnessed any disturbances.

Senior officials from the Federal Migration Service said the point of the raid was to warn Rau that he was not allowed to work in Russia with the business visa he had.

They also said that they were not planning to fine or prosecute the director.

Rau was directing a three-day reenactment of trials against Russian artists, including Pussy Riot, who staged an anti-Putin protest in Moscow’s main cathedral last February.

Three band members were sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism after a trial that drew worldwide outrage and widespread condemnation from human rights groups. The court did not allow their defense teams to call most of their witnesses and included medieval Orthodox Christian liturgical texts as evidence.

Yekaterina Samutsevich, a Pussy Riot member who was later released on appeal, had earlier played a part in the March 3 rehearsal.