Pls will the next person who meets tATu....

[JasonRichmond]

....tell them about the petition! I still don't know if they know it exists yet.

If you are planning to meet them wherever they are stopping next in the US, or anywhere else, please hand them a typed or handwritten copy of the petition's url:

http://www.petitiononline.com/backtatu/petition.html

We also need tATu to help spread the word among the famous / influential and media people who they meet, to try and get loads more sigs in a short time. Why? The UK Parliament is about to consider new laws which could be used to ban tATu's videos (the Sexual Offences Bill). With enough signatures, expecially from the UK, MPs will realise that passing these laws will be deeply unpopular.

BTW, the new laws will include the 'grooming law' which will also criminalise relationships between 18-year-olds and 15-year-olds.

These laws must be opposed. It's time for Britain's youth to rise up in protest.

[lenajuliafan]

i can try ..i go concert this summer . ..anyway i am doing them letter so ..i just try

but i am not sure..if i can give this to them

[sheerblade]

The UK Parliament is about to consider new laws which could be used to ban tATu's videos (the Sexual Offences Bill). With enough signatures, expecially from the UK, MPs will realise that passing these laws will be deeply unpopular.

BTW, the new laws will include the 'grooming law' which will also criminalise relationships between 18-year-olds and 15-year-olds.

Oh man thats nasty!

[vic3k]

What UK is coming to????????????
UK was #1 on my list where i would love to work and live instead of canada. now i'm not so sure anymore, this and tatu, and what i've seen... it just seems like some kind of closed state. call it soviet union if you will

[forre]

All right, the petition is a good thing. Politically. What does it have to do with t.A.T.u.? And what the purpose with telling them about the internal affairs in U.K.? t.A.T.u. lives in Russia. They don't give a piece about English laws. They may comment it but they are not going to start any action.

[freddie]

Well maybe they might be remotly interested in it if it's a subject they fell passionately about. After all tatu are not just singing for the russian youth. They are the voice of people all over the world... like a new sexual revolution.

Well it's worth a try.

[forre]

So who is going to give them this petition? I want to see this person really. Can imagine Lena's and Yulia's surprised faces. Bet on Shap instead. He's their creator and spiritual father after all. E-mail him here!

[freddie]

Originally posted by forre
So who is going to give them this petition? I want to see this person really. Can imagine Lena's and Yulia's surprised faces. Bet on Shap instead. He's their creator and spiritual father after all. E-mail him here!

Hmmmm...He's not a teenager anymore. The question here is if he really belives in this ideas. My guess is he does, but doesn't care as much to do something about it.

[JasonRichmond]

Originally posted by vic3k
What UK is coming to????????????
UK was #1 on my list where i would love to work and live instead of canada. now i'm not so sure anymore, this and tatu, and what i've seen... it just seems like some kind of closed state. call it soviet union if you will

Please can we have some of your glastnost and perestroika?

[JasonRichmond]

Originally posted by forre
All right, the petition is a good thing. Politically. What does it have to do with t.A.T.u.? And what the purpose with telling them about the internal affairs in U.K.? t.A.T.u. lives in Russia. They don't give a piece about English laws. They may comment it but they are not going to start any action.

Um, so you haven't noticed that tAtu represent teenage lesbian sexuality positively? Therefore, censorship of tATu sends the opposite message, that lesbian teenagers should be ashamed of who they are. My petition opposes censorship of tATu anywhere in the world.

Do Lena and Yulia care? I would like to think they care about their message. On a more cynical level, they didn't start to earn serious money until they sold their music and videos outside Russia. Richard Madeley has already threatened to use the new legislation to get half of those works banned in the UK by the courts.

[JasonRichmond]

Originally posted by forre
So who is going to give them this petition? I want to see this person really. Can imagine Lena's and Yulia's surprised faces. Bet on Shap instead. He's their creator and spiritual father after all. E-mail him here!

Well, i've sent emails and faxes galore, to Lena's and Yulia's supposed email addresses (lena@******** and yulia@********), to Universal Music Russia, to the administrator of ********, Interscope Records, tatugirls.com, etc etc, but they get thousands of such messages so i don't think they read most of them.

I am hoping the next fan who meets them gives them the url to the petition.

I haven't tried that email address of Ivan's though; thanks for that.

Their faces should be pleasantly surprised when they read all the intelligent, supportive things that people said in the comments section of the petition.

BTW, thanks to everyone here who has signed it already, and to the administrators and mods who endorsed it, such as the admin of the official St Petersburg fan club.

[JasonRichmond]

Originally posted by freddie
Well maybe they might be remotly interested in it if it's a subject they fell passionately about. After all tatu are not just singing for the russian youth. They are the voice of people all over the world... like a new sexual revolution.

Well it's worth a try.

Exactly! That's tATu at their very best and, hopefully, how historians will remember them. That's why they are worth fighting for.

[JasonRichmond]

Originally posted by freddie
Hmmmm...He's not a teenager anymore. The question here is if he really belives in this ideas. My guess is he does, but doesn't care as much to do something about it.

Tell Ivan to feel his back pocket and remind him Richard Madeley wants the CDs removed from the shops.

[JasonRichmond]

Schools Out campaigns for the rights of gay teachers and students in the UK.

Subj: Re: [schoolsoutnational] Schools Out news update
Date: 01/06/2003
To: schoolsoutnational-owner@yahoogroups.co.uk


Beware! Even as we slay one demon, another prepares to take its place.

Section 28 may be about to bite the dust, but new legislation will make teachers afraid to teach anything positive about youth sexuality at all, whether gay or straight. The Sexual Offences Bill proposes to outlaw material that 'promotes' underage sex or 'paedophilia', so we will be right back where we started.

See Liberty's concerns about this aspect of the Bill at their site. From memory, it's http://www.liberty-human-rights.org, and navigate from there. Their response to the Bill is well signposted from their home page.

Richard Madeley has already threatened to use this legislation to get tATu videos banned by the courts. If that can be done, videos that explain and portray gay sexuality positively, even if they are used for educational purposes, are in danger from similar lawsuits by anti-gay / moral-conservative campaigners.

In order to constitute an offence, the material will no longer have to be 'obscene' or 'tend to deprave and corrupt', it will only have to be sexual. The definition of 'sexual' in Clause 80 is very broad: the word 'reasonable' appears about six times! That will leave it wide open to interpretation, and for lawyers to have a field day. When I asked them, Liberty advised me that kissing on the lips is likely to be defined as 'sexual' (hence the vulnerability of the music videos that tATu made before they were 16).

The Bill also includes the proposed 'grooming' law (Clause 17), which will effectively criminalise relationships between 15-year-olds and 18-year-olds, whether gay or straight. Taken together with Clauses 17 and 80, the so-called 'child protection' parts of the Bill will further endanger children and youth, by driving adults away from them, thereby leaving them more isolated and vulnerable to sexual abuse by the one group that is most likely to perpetrate it, i.e. their own parents.

But the Bill is a parent-driven, not a youth-driven, agenda. It amounts to a populist response by New Labour to tabloid-driven paedophile hysteria. The adult gay movement has already deserted the cause of gay youth because they are afraid of being branded as paedophiles. The end result is that those youth have become the neglected generation, and are likely to remain so unless we organise to oppose the aforementioned provisions of the Bill.

All of those things said, it would not be accurate to conclude that gay youth in the UK have nothing going for them. The adult gay movement is rather fond of trashing tATu as a 'fake lesbian marketing exercise', which completely misses the point. Yet, people in the least likely places get the point, such as music critic Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph, and Jemima Lewis of The Independent. They have noticed that the songs and performances represent teenage lesbian sexuality positively; and that the message is so powerfully political that it is self-evidently not a pornographic project in reality. That's the point. For that reason, thank God tATu are brilliantly marketed: only a household name could impact seriously on playground bigotry.

It follows that, every time their public displays of affection are censored, that censorship sends the opposite political message, that gay youth should be ashamed of who they are. That's why this petition needs a lot more than the 18,000 signatures it currently has, so that it can be presented to the House of Commons and used to influence MPs when they debate the Bill:

http://www.petitiononline.com/backtatu/petition.html

Please promote it as widely as possible!

It is impossible to imagine how teenage lesbian sexual pride could be asserted unerotically. So what! Get used to the fact that straight males and lesbian teenagers alike are normal and healthy. Learn to tell the difference between such a male, and one who is dangerous to children.

Middle-aged woman to middle-aged husband: You've been eyeing up a lot of young teenage girls lately, I'm starting to worry about you.
Husband to wife: My dear, when I stop looking at them, that's the time to start worrying.

Jason
(Jason Richmond, petition author)