{"id":1986,"date":"2012-09-25T06:21:22","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T06:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=1986"},"modified":"2012-09-25T06:21:22","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T06:21:22","slug":"politics-doesnt-pay-says-ikea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=1986","title":{"rendered":"Politics doesn’t pay says IKEA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pussy Riot look-alikes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Furniture firm IKEA has removed a photograph from its Russian website of people in colourful ski masks like those worn by punk band Pussy Riot, three of whose members were jailed after staging a protest against Vladimir Putin in a church.<\/p>\n

The picture, which showed four people in the masks sitting on IKEA furniture, had been posted on a section of the site which displays photographs of customers posing at stores.<\/p>\n

A notice on the website confirmed the image had been removed and said: “IKEA is a commercial organisation that conducts its activity outside of politics and religion.”<\/p>\n

“We cannot allow our advertising project to be used as a platform for campaigning of any kind,” it added.<\/p>\n

Pussy Riot’s band members were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after belting out a song criticising Putin, then prime minister and now president, in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. They were handed two-year jail terms.<\/p>\n

The brightly coloured balaclava masks they wore during the protest have become the band’s trademark.<\/p>\n

The Russian Orthodox Church head has called the cathedral protest part of a campaign aimed at curbing the resurgence of Russia’s main faith.<\/p>\n

Russia has dismissed the criticism from abroad, which the Foreign Ministry said pointed to a “clash of civilisations”. Putin has said the state is obliged to protect the feelings of the faithful.<\/p>\n

A representative of IKEA in Russia confirmed on Sunday the notice had replaced a photograph of people wearing ski masks and declined to comment further immediately, asking for a written request which would be answered on Monday.<\/p>\n

IKEA has invested about 2.5 billion euros ($3.25 billion) in Russia since 2000, building stores that anchor malls on the outskirts of big cities. When it posted record profits for the fiscal 2010\/11 year in December, the company said some of its biggest sales gains were in Russia.<\/p>\n

In 2009 IKEA had threatened to halt further expansion in the country, citing corruption and red tape, but last November it said it was looking to at least double its three-store footprint in Moscow and refurbish its 14 MEGA malls.<\/p>\n

A Moscow court is to begin hearing an appeal against the convictions and sentences in the Pussy Riot trial on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Furniture firm IKEA has removed a photograph from its Russian website of people in colourful ski masks like those worn by punk band Pussy Riot, three of whose members were jailed after staging a protest against Vladimir Putin in a church. The picture, which showed four people in the masks sitting on IKEA furniture, had … Continue reading “Politics doesn’t pay says IKEA”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[1342,1343,1344,66],"class_list":["post-1986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-pussy-riot","tag-putin","tag-religious-freedom","tag-russia"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pussyriot.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1989,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions\/1989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}