Features
Pussy Rioters Arrested In Sochi
Two members of the protest group Pussy Riot say they were arrested in the Russian resort of Sochi where the Winter Olympics are being held, according to BBC News. They were released with no charges brought against them, CNN reported.
Photo: AP Photo/Morry Gash
Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (in pink) and Maria Alekhina (in white) exit the police station after being detained for an alleged theft at their hotel Jan. 18 in Adler, Russia. No charges were filed.
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who have both claimed they’re no longer with the band, have said they’ve been arrested and accused of theft.
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova, who were freed from jail in December after serving nearly two years for a protest in a Moscow cathedral, have described Sochi as “a police town.”
Tolokonnikova also claimed that since their arrival on February 16, they had been detained several times.
Apparently they’d visited the Winter Olympics to perform a new song called “Putin Will Teach You To Love Your Motherland,” another protest about how Russian premier Vladimir Putin is running the country.
Semyon Simonov, a local human rights activist, said he was with the two women when they were stopped and accused of theft.
He said that several other activists were also detained by police at the same time.
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were convicted of hooliganism after staging a protest in Moscow’s largest cathedral in 2012 in opposition to President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier in February the other members of Pussy Riot signed an open letter insisting that the two should no longer be described as members of the punk rock collective.
They said the pair had forgotten about the “aspirations and ideals of our group” and shouldn’t have appeared at an Amnesty International concert in New York.