Pussy Riot three found guilty
Two-year prison sentence sparks rallies and protests
By Sophia Kishkovsky. Web only
Published online: 17 August 2012
Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina
and Yekaterina Samutsevich have been found guilty today, 17 August, of
hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. The term hooliganism since the days
of the Soviet Union has strong overtones of
political dissent. They were sentenced to two years in a prison colony for
their guerrilla performance of a punk “prayer” against Vladimir Putin and
Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church in front of the altar of Moscow ’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral last February, a Moscow
Patriarch Kirill I, who is heavily supported by the
government and in turn has given it his full allegiance, did not waver from his
early hard opinion of the women’s action, calling it a “desecration” of the
cathedral.
The scene outside the courtroom was tense. Among Pussy
Riot’s supporters outside the court as the verdict was handed down were
artists, some wearing colourful balaclavas like those worn by the defendants
during their anti-Putin protest. Others were in T-shirts with a line from the
punk prayer: “O Birthgiver of God, Get Rid of Putin.” Cossacks and Russian
nationalists who have condemned Pussy Riot’s actions also crowded around the
courthouse building in Moscow
In the text of the verdict that she read outside of
Moscow’s Khamovnichesky Court this afternoon, Judge Maria Syrova said,
according to the Interfax news agency, that Pussy Riot’s “action was carried
out in a clearly disrespectful form, lacking in any moral basis and clearly
expressing their religious hatred and enmity towards one of the religions that
exists in our day— Christianity—infringing on its equal rights, identity, and
great meaning to a great number of nations and peoples.”
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