Moscow On The Hudson - We Are All Pussy Riot Now (UPDATED)

Russian punkers Pussy Riot were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, over a protest in a cathedral" today.

The judge said that Pussy Riot members had "crudely undermined social order" during their action in February.

Member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has said through her lawyer that "Our imprisonment serves as a clear and unambiguous sign that freedom is being taken away from the entire country."

Meanwhile, back in Moscow on the Hudson, Dear Leader Michael Bloomberg's army, the NYPD, arrested Harlem activist Joseph Jazz Hayden, 71, on felony weapons charges after they illegally searched his car and found a pen knife and commemorative mini-baseball bat.

Hayden runs Harlem/NYC Cop Watch, a site that documents police brutality and transgressions and has videotaped many instances of police aggression and racial profiling as part of Herr Bloomberg's Stop-And-Frisk policy.

How similar these two cases are - the arrest (and now conviction) of three Pussy Riot members for protesting the Orthodox Church's support of Putin and the arrest of Hayden for documenting NYPD transgressions and crimes.

One would hope that a judge here will throw the NYPD case against Hayden - ridiculous on its face - out.

But given how quickly this nation and in particular this city have transitioned into a police state after the 9/11 attacks, that is no longer a by-gone conclusion.

Today I want to publicly state my support for both Pussy Riot and Joseph Jazz Hayden.

The treatment of these three Pussy Riot members in Russia by Vladimir Putin and Joseph Jazz Hayden in the United States by Michael Bloomberg shows how we now live in one big world run by oligarchs and plutocrats.

Vladimir Putin and Michael Bloomberg are men made from the same cloth and they will have you stomped by their respective police forces if you step outside their established social orders.

UPDATE - 11:32 AM: The three members of Pussy Riot convicted on "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" charges have been sentenced to two years in a prison colony.

Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were handed the sentence by a judge in Moscow amid a wave of protests around the world.

The three stared ahead defiantly from inside a glass cage, their wrists shackled in handcuffs, as the verdict was read. Supporters and opposition activists blamed the case against the women – and the tough sentence – on Vladimir Putin.

"Whatever Putin wants, Putin gets. That is the only thing to say," Tolokonnikova's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, said on leaving the court.

Russian police have been rounding up Pussy Riot supporters - including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and leftist opposition group leader Sergei Udaltsov - in the wake of the judge's decision.

Here in Moscow on the Hudson, there is a rally in support of Pussy Rio at 46th and Broadway at 1 PM today.

No word on whether Mayor Bloomberg will have Pussy Riot supporters orange-netted and maced by Tony Bologna.

But bring wet cloth just in case.