MOSCOW - A week after the conviction of Pussy Riot punk band members, 65% of Russians are aware of the sentence and opinions about it differ, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center told Interfax on Thursday.
Thirty-three percent know the singers were sentenced and 32% know what sentence the court passed, the sociologists said.
Respondents with higher education (40%) and people of pre-retirement age (36%) are best informed about the sentence.
Thirty-one percent learned about the Pussy Riot sentence from the
sociologists, mostly young people (36-37%), people with secondary
education (40-41%) and people who browse the Internet rarely or never
(33-34%).
The overwhelming majority of respondents who were aware of the
sentence said it was two years (91%). Three percent said the singers
were sentenced to three years, and 2% said a suspended sentence was
passed.
Thirty-three percent said that the sentence was too severe, and 31%
argued that the sentence corresponded to the offense. Fifteen percent
said the sentence was too mild, and 10% said there was nothing to try
the girls for at all. The opinion that the sentence was too severe was
expressed mostly by respondents with higher education (39%), while
people with secondary education said the ruling was fair (37%).
The center polled 1,600 people in 138 towns and cities in 46 regions of Russia on August 25-26.
The three Pussy Riot musicians have been sentenced to two years in
jail on “hooliganism” charges for a song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ
the Savior in February – a “punk prayer” in which they asked the Virgin
Mary to “throw out” Vladimir Putin, who was then prime minister and
running for president.
