Alan Gan

Mingrone P1
Streets are lined with posters depicting heads of alleged traitors, of people who have
selfishly disrupted social harmony, inviting discord and rebellion. Hooliganism has just been
outlawed, and jails are brimming with perpetrators of that hateful crime. Movies depicting
alleged hooligans are censored while the media instill anti-hooligan prejudices into the public.
Such absurd, Orwellian circumstances may seem like fairy-tale warnings for incumbent leaders,
but such propagandist enactments are at the heart of modern Russian legislation. While
propaganda can unify the public on certain issues and fortify the bonds among the people, the
deceit and exploitation that constitute such dealings ultimately deprive the public of their
essential rights to individual dissent.
To dissent or show signs of protest against imperious propagandist leaders and their
ideologies is to risk incarceration and defamation. After delivering a politically charged antiPutin concert in a Catholic Church, three members of punk rock band Pussy Riot were jailed on
charges of hooliganism and insulting the Russian Orthodox Church (Smith-Spark). The
arrest and trial of these members demonstrate the antithetical natures of national interests and
freedom of expression in states with propagandist leaders. By arresting the three members of
Pussy Riot, Putin also arrested the development of freedom of expression in the country.
Through this ploy, Putin implanted further prejudices into the Russian population against those
who dissent from government doctrines, people who express dislike towards his regime. He
makes evident the efficacy of such propagandist tactics47% of Russians believe Pussy Riot
violated societys moral values and many were offended by [the bands act of] desecration

(Pettengill). The distorted information propagated in many propaganda schemes aims to turn the
public against the dissenter such that he begins to suffer social isolation and ostracism, which
may ultimately lead to unjust retributions. In Arthur Millers adaptation of An Enemy of the
People, Dr. Stockmann proposes ideas that contradict widespread propagandathat the springs
are [insert quote about the springs being good], which, in fact, they are notand is resultantly
alienated by the people and defamed by the mayor, Peter Stockmann. In the same way, the
conservative views on freedom of speech and expression endorsed by Putin isolate the members
of Pussy Riot, limiting their rights to dissent.