You're reading: Moscow court frees 1 of 3 Pussy Riot members

MOSCOW — A Moscow appeals court on Wednesday unexpectedly freed one jailed member of punk band Pussy Riot, but upheld the two-year prison sentences for the two other women jailed for an irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin.

All three women were convicted in August of hooliganism
motivated by religious hatred. They argued in court on Wednesday that
their impromptu performance inside Moscow’s main cathedral in February
was political in nature and not an attack on religion.

The case
has been condemned in the U.S. and Europe, where it has been seen as an
illustration of Putin’s intensifying crackdown on dissent after his
return to the presidency after four years as prime minister.

The
Moscow City Court ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich’s sentence should be
suspended because she was thrown out of the cathedral by guards before
she could remove her guitar from its case and take part in the
performance.

“The punishment for an incomplete crime is much
lighter than for a completed one,” said Samutsevich’s lawyer, Irina
Khrunova. “She did not participate in the actions the court found
constituted hooliganism.”

Dressed in neon-colored miniskirts and
tights, with homemade balaclavas on their heads, the women performed a
“punk prayer” asking Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin as he headed
into a March election that would hand him a third term.

“If we
unintentionally offended any believers with our actions, we express our
apologies,” said Samutsevich, who along with Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda
Tolokonnikova spoke in court Wednesday from inside a glass cage known
colloquially as the “aquarium.”

“The idea of the protest was
political, not religious,” she said. “In this and in previous protests
we acted against the current government of the president, and against
the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution of the Russian government,
against the political comments of the Russian patriarch. Exactly
because of this I don’t consider that I committed a crime.”

Rights groups were frustrated by the appeals court decision.

“To
see these two women sent to a Russian penal colony for the crime of
singing a song undercuts any claim that Putin and the Russian government
have to democracy and freedom of expression,” Suzanne Nossel, executive
director of Amnesty International USA, said Wednesday in a telephone
interview from Washington.

“It’s a very cold climate for human rights in Russia right now,” Nossel said.

Putin
recently said the two-year sentences were justified because “It is
impermissible to undermine our moral foundations, moral values, to try
to destroy the country.” Defense lawyers said his remarks amounted to
pressure on the appeals court.

The appeal was postponed from Oct. 1
after Samutsevich fired her lawyers, a move prosecutors criticized at
the time as a delaying tactic. Her father, Stanislav Samutsevich,
attributed his daughter’s release mostly to the change in lawyers. He
said he was deeply sorry for Alekhina and Tolokonnikova, who are
expected to be sent to a penal colony to serve out their sentences.

Members
of the original defense team said they were puzzled by the turn of
events. “We are dealing with a political game that could be about
splitting Pussy Riot,” defense lawyer Mark Feigin said.

The
Russian Orthodox Church had said the appeals court should show leniency
if the three women repented. But the defendants said Wednesday that they
could not repent because they harbored no religious hatred and had
committed no crime. Their protest, they said, was against Putin and the
church hierarchy for openly supporting his rule.

Patriarch Kirill
has expressed strong support for Putin, praising his leadership as
“God’s miracle.” He described the punk performance as part of an assault
by “enemy forces” on the church.

The judge repeatedly interrupted
the defendants when their statements turned to politics, but they
persisted in speaking their minds.

“We will not be silent. And
even if we are in Mordovia or Siberia (where prisoners in Russia are
often sent to serve out their terms) we won’t be silent,” Alekhina said.

A
lawyer representing cathedral staff, Alexei Taratukhin, urged the court
to uphold the verdict because the women’s actions “had nothing to do
with politics, democracy or freedom.”

Five members of Pussy Riot
entered the vast and nearly empty Christ the Savior Cathedral on Feb.
21. After Alekhina and her guitar were bundled out, only four of them
were left to dance on the altar and shout out the words to their song
before they too were ousted by security guards.

The band members
were wearing their trademark balaclavas, which may have made it more
difficult for police to identify them. The three women were arrested in
March, and the group said the two others have since fled the country.

Pussy
Riot later produced a video that added footage of a previous
performance in a smaller church and dubbed in the soundtrack. This
video, which became an Internet hit, was what most angered Russian
Orthodox believers.

Tolokonnikova appealed to Russians for understanding:

“I
don’t consider myself guilty. But again I ask all those who are
listening to me for the last time: I don’t want people to be angry at
me: Yes, I’m going to prison, but I don’t want anyone to think that
there is any hatred in me.”

The court refused the defense lawyers’
request to take into consideration that Tolokonnikova and Alekhina both
have a young child.