In the midst of Pussy Riot’s creator Nadya Tolokonnikova’s live durational performance POLICE STATE at MCA Chicago, the Russian Ministry of Justice has abruptly moved to designate Pussy Riot the collective as an extremist organization. A lawsuit seeking to designate the organization as extremist has been filed with Moscow’s Tverskoy Court. A hearing is scheduled for December 15. Previously specific members have been labeled foreign agents, criminals, terrorists, or added to international wanted lists. But this will be the first time the art protest group itself finds itself with the official designation, should the court ruling go through in December. This comes in Russia alongside a troubling crackdown across the globe on blanket classifications of groups of dissidents as criminals, extremists, and terrorists.
Russian Ministry website (Blocked outside of Russia) – here
Mirror Link here
Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation
In accordance with Part 3 of Article 263 of the Code of Administrative Court Proceedings of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Justice of Russia informs you that administrative case No. 02a-1401/2025, concerning the administrative claim filed by the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation seeking to recognize the association “Punk Group Pussy Riot” as an extremist organization and to ban its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation, has been scheduled for a court hearing on:
15 December 2025 at 10:00 AM
at the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow
Address: 129090, Moscow, ul. Kalanchevskaya, 43a
Phone: (495) 694-01-73
Fax: (495) 694-04-95
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Nadya Tolokonnikova, creator of the performance art collective response, who is currently sitting in a prison cell at MCA Chicago, highlighting that the incoming POLICE STATE is coming soon to a city near you, is not blind to the irony. She sits under a bright guard tower – “NO PROBLEMS IN PARADISE, WE LOCK THEM UP” lyrics from her song “Police State”, a statement on the lengths authoritarian governments will go to reach their goals:
I’m in the middle of a durational performance POLICE STATE at MCA Chicago now – all days long, I’m sewing police uniforms and mixing live sound at the installation that resembles a Russian prison cell, a piece that’s meant to warn about surveillance authoritarianism spreading around the world like a virus. Is it a coincidence that I’m getting the news about the movement I’ve dreamt up in 2011 being soon added to the list of extremist organizations in Russia, or the artwork once again merges with reality?
When we were in that church basement in Moscow dreaming up Pussy Riot, K. and I imagined Pussy Riot growing into a movement. Fourteen years later, the Prosecutor General’s Office is demanding that we be declared an extremist organization.
If on December 15 the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow grants the Prosecutor General’s request, we’ll be officially placed in the same category as the Azov, LGBT, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
I’m laughing in disbelief.
But at the same time I want to remind everyone that someone has to be the voice of common sense. And in this distorted world this voice now has to come from punks, artists, tricksters, holy fools.
Singing in the streets is not extremism. Doing street actions is not extremism.
Extremism is invading other countries and committing war crimes. Being anti-fascist and wearing a Pikachu costume… is not extremism.
Pussy Riot have always stood – and will continue to stand – with Saint Nikolai, who wasn’t afraid to throw a piece of raw meat at the feet of Ivan the Terrible himself, calling him out: “You eat human flesh and blood.”
And if telling the truth is “extreme,” then hold my Red Bull.