At the 9 September FREE PUSSY RIOT LONDON Fundraiser Concert, British Labour party politician KERRY MCCARTHY MP gave an eloquent and impassioned speech about her experience at the trial of Masha, Katya and Nadya in Moscow and the importance of keeping the pressure up on the Pussy Riot release campaign.

In this video, she highlights the increased coverage of the case by UK mainstream media, the growing opposition movement in Russia and the heavily biased trial which gave the three women very little room for self-defence.  She then goes on to praise the women’s defiance in the face of hardened patriarchy and predicts that they will be studied by political students of the future.

McCarthy finishes by saying how important it is for artists at all levels to speak out, and emphasizes that: “We can’t give up the fight… We’ve absolutely got to keep up the pressure and keep on supporting — not just the three members of Pussy Riot in jail, but the other people who are part of the Pussy Riot collective, and everybody in Russia that is fighting against a system that doesn’t allow them to be themselves, doesn’t allow them to protest, and [who] wants to overturn this regime.”