You're reading: Russia extends jailing of pussy riot activists

MOSCOW - Three members of female punk group Pussy Riot who derided President Vladimir Putin in a protest in Moscow's main cathedral had their spell in jail extended by six months on Friday in what their lawyers called a show trial dictated by the Kremlin.

The women, who have been held in pre-trial custody for almost five months, face up to seven years in jail on charges of hooliganism for storming the altar in multi-coloured masks to sing a “punk prayer” to the Virgin Mary to “Throw Putin Out!”

The Feb. 21 protest, which offended many believers in the mainly Orthodox Christian country, exposed deep divisions over the church leadership’s backing for Putin and the scale of punishment faced by the women, two of whom have young children.

Defence lawyer Mark Feigin said the court’s acquiescence to a prosecution request to hold Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich until Jan. 13, 2013, showed Russian leaders had given orders for their conviction.

“Today’s decision only proves again that our role as defendants here is a pure formality,” Feigin told reporters after the hearing, which was closed to the media.

“There is a lot of evidence that the judge will disregard justice in favour of a pre-set instructions on how to rule, which have been handed down by the authorities. They want to find them guilty… to punish them with real jail time.

“It is not a process but a judicial reprisal,” he said.

RECALLING KHODORKOVSKY

Court spokeswoman Darya Lyakh said a date would be announced on Monday for the start of the high-profile trial, which has drawn comparisons to the jailing of former oil tycoon, billionaire and Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The Pussy Riot hearing on Friday took place in the same Moscow court that housed Khodorkovsky’s trial.

Pussy Riot’s renegade performance was part of a protest movement against Putin’s 12-year dominance that at its peak saw 100,000 people take part in winter demonstrations in Moscow.

Outside Friday’s hearing, Orthodox Church faithful mingled warily with Pussy Riot backers, some of whom wore T-shirts emblazoned with the band’s trademark brightly coloured balaclava.

A church activist read Bible passages out loud, while one of the women’s supporters unfurled a banners “Throw Putin Out!”, raising chants of “Freedom, Freedom!” before he was detained.

“Believers’ feelings are not worth a prison sentence,” read another sign held aloft, before rain dispersed the crowd.

The three women’s arrest has drawn widespread outrage among human rights groups and opposition activists already fuming over the church’s backing of Putin in a presidential election he won in March. Amnesty International has urged Russia to free the trio, criticising the severity of the response by authorities.

But some Orthodox believers have called for tough punishment for an act they regard as blasphemous.

“I was really upset at what happened,” said Vadim Kvyatkovski, a member of an Orthodox Christian youth group. “This was no act of art. If it was happening anywhere else, in the street, we could discuss that, but when it is in a cathedral then it just violates our freedoms.”

Half of Muscovites surveyed this month by the Levada Center, an independent pollster, said they had negative views about the prosecution of Pussy Riot members while 36 percent said they welcomed the criminal case.