Nearly every day since Gov. Scott Walker announced plans to strip collective bargaining rights from public workers in 2011, protesters have taken to the Capitol building to sing. Last summer the Capitol police cracked down, arresting hundreds of these "solidarity singers," including firemen, teachers, students and teenagers, some of which owe thousands of dollars in citations.
In a video released this week, those singers have found some celebrity support from artists who know a thing or two about being arrested for using music as protest: Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonikova and Masha Alyokhina, who famously spent nearly two years in Russian prison following a protest performance. The video likens Wisconsin's free-speech crackdown to Russia's, and urges Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to drop the citations against the protesters.
“Use music to change the world in the direction you want it to change, because music touches people and makes them act," Tolokonikova says toward the end of the clip, which you can stream below.
