Civil Liberties

Moscow Court Rejects Pussy Riot Appeal

"There are no politics, they are just hooligans," court says

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Two years in jail for Pussy Riot members is a lawful term and the case has no political connotation, Moscow City Court ruled, dismissing the supervisory appeal by defense. Two members remain in prison for their 'punk prayer' in Moscow's main cathedral.

"There are no politics, they are just hooligans," the chairwoman of the court, Olga Yegorova, said after the hearing.

Yegorova has ruled that in August 2012 the court appropriately sentenced members of the 'feminist punk band' Pussy Riot – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina (along with Ekaterina Samutsevich, whose term was later changed on suspended one) to two years in prison for aggravated 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred'. Despite Alyokhina having a child, she was still denied parole.