The Daily Shift’s Martina Gannon follows up her report on the arrest of Pussy Riot, with a report on the trial of the Russian band…
After a nine day trial three members of notorious Russian band Pussy Riot have been found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
The verdict was delivered today on 17 August to 22-year-old Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24-year-old Maria Alyokhina, and 29-year-old Yekaterina Samutsevich at Khamovnichesky Court in Moscow.
They were each sentenced to two years in prison. In the event of the girls being found guilty, prosecutors had previously requested a three-year prison term for each of the band members.
The band were arrested in March after staging a political protest in the form of a flash mob performance of their punk song entitled: ‘Holy Shit’. The band performed the song in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and have been detained ever since.
In an interview with Mark Calvin from ABC News before the trial, Anna Sevortian, a director of Human Rights Watch, spoke about the unjust but inevitable nature and verdict of the case and what makes the charge “absurd”;
“The girls are actually charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. And that’s a criminal offence. And it makes this case a hate crime which it clearly isn’t because Tolokonnikova and Samoutsevitch and a fourth member of the band that were there in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour were making a political statement and that’s very clear to us at Human Rights Watch.”
She further described the charge as: ”disproportionate and inappropriate. It shouldn’t have been a criminal case at all.”
Pussy Riot member Maria Alekhina later told the court:
“I am not scared of you. I’m not scared of lies and fiction, or the badly formed deception that is the verdict of this so-called court. Because my words will live, thanks to openness…When thousands of people will read and watch this, this freedom will grow with every caring person who listens to us in this country.”
Seven other members of the band have made a video pledging to continue the girls protest and threaten that even if some of them are caught and charged there will always be someone else to replace them and continue fighting the cause.
Moscow City Court today banned gay pride parades in the city for the next 100 years. The court rejected an appeal by gay rights activist Nikolay Alexeyev.
The Moscow city government claims that gay pride parades are not supported by the majority of civilians and that they could cause public disorder.
The court has also banned the spreading of “homosexual propaganda”.
