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Artist News Legal
Pussy Riot members “must be isolated from society”, says prosecutor
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 8 August 2012
The prosecutor in the trial of three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot has said that they “must be isolated from society”, calling for them to be jailed for three years, reports The Guardian. The sentence would be four shorter than the maximum seven years they could face if found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility”.
As previously reported, the charge against Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich stems from an incident in February this year when the ten strong band performed a song in the Cathedral Of Christ The Saviour Of The Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, protesting against Vladimir Putin ahead of elections that saw him win his third term as the country’s president. Billed as a “punk prayer”, the song called on the “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin” to “throw Putin out”. All three women have pleaded not guilty.
Federal prosecutor Alexei Nikiforov told the Moscow court that the band’s motivations could not have been politically motivated because they named “no politicians” in their song, and instead had “violated the traditions of our country”.
Yelena Pavlova, acting as lawyer for nine people who said they were offended by the band’s performance, added: “All the defendants talked about being feminists and said that is allowed in the Russian Orthodox church. This does not correspond with reality. Feminism is a mortal sin”.
Earlier, one of the lawyers acting for the Pussy Riot members, said: “Russia has no rule of law. Russia has no justice system. Nothing has changed from Soviet times. [A guilty verdict will] definitely tear up relations between society and government. Society will never forgive the government. [But] if the order is handed down from above to jail them, then they will be jailed”.
A verdict in the trial is expected later this week.
