 Pussy Riot Verdict 
 
 The Moscow trial of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot, which ended Friday with a two-year jail sentence for ‘felony hooliganism,’ showed just how far Russia is traveling back in time. I was on vacation with my kids, but being away from Moscow, where everyone I know was protesting outside the courthouse, made me feel even more helpless than I did when I was there with them a few days earlier. The Pussy Riot case shines a much needed, if highly disturbing, spotlight on the issue of freedom of expression in post-Soviet Russia 
 
 On February 21, four members of the group performed what they call a "punk prayer" in Moscow's Russian Orthodox Christ the Savior Cathedral. The cathedral had been virtually empty during the morning hours, and the protest lasted all of 40 seconds before the women were removed by security. This was not the sort of cross with which Orthodox Christians should bless themselves.” 
 
 Or consider this. Imagine what would have happened if the judges in the Salem witch trials had encountered not their contemporaries but ours.
– The 2-year prison sentence given to Russian punk band Pussy Riot yesterday has sparked angry commentary from Western observers. Among the reactions: Voices in the ruling United Russia party called for moderation in the sentencing, which means "Russia will not become a totalitarian regime again," notes Uwe Klussmen at Der Spiegel. But "by turning basically harmless artists into criminals, the regime has transformed the trial against Pussy Riot into a political time bomb." He quotes a Moscow journalist who predicts that "it will lead to revolution and to war and blood." At Daily Beast, Masha Gessen sees a resemblance to the Salem witch trials. The sentencing judge said a member of Pussy Riot has a "mixed personality disorder" that includes "stubbornness and a tendency to insist categorically on her own opinion as well as a tendency toward oppositional forms of behavior." Writes Gessen: "Sound awkward in English? That’s because it’s not just from a different world but from a different era." The "stark" human rights drama of Soviet times has morphed into a situation that's "harder to figure out, often making it easier for outsiders simply to give the government a pass," writes Rachel Denber at CNN. But under Vladimir Putin, critics have been silenced or murdered; now Pussy Riot has shown us how Russia works. "What we really should be wondering isn't why Pussy Riot is so distinctive, but whether it's just the tip of the iceberg."