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Russia’s Supreme Court critical of Pussy Riot ruling

By | Published on Monday 16 December 2013

Pussy Riot

Russia’s Supreme Court last week criticised the guilty verdicts in the Pussy Riot case and ordered a review of the ruling.

As much previously reported, three members of the punk protest group were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” in August 2012 after staging a provocative performance that criticised the Russian government and church in a Moscow cathedral. Two of the three, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were jailed.

Most in Russia’s political class, including President Vladimir Putin, endorsed the ruling, but the country’s Supreme Court now says that the prosecution in the case failed to demonstrate that the defendants were motivated by hatred towards a specific social group, which, appeal judges said last week, is necessary for this ruling. The Supreme Court added that judges in the lower court should also have considered that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were mothers with young children when sentencing them.

With this in mind, Supreme Court judges have ordered a review of the case. As previously reported, it’s already thought that an ‘amnesty bill’ recently put forward to the country’s parliament by Putin, in theory aiming to show leniency on the twentieth anniversary of the Russian Constitution, but more likely designed to overturn internationally controversial Russian court rulings before next year’s Winter Olympics in Russia, could also lead to the Pussy Riot two being freed early.

Though, with only three months or so of the two protestors’ sentences left to run anyway, even if the amnesty bill or Supreme Court ruling do lead to early release, the duo will still have served most of their respective jail terms.



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