Russia: Police arrest 13 outside Pussy Riot court hearing
A Pussy Riot supporter is arrested by Russian police outside a court in Moscow. Photograph: Andrei Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images
Dozens gather to protest against arrests of three women over performance of anti-Putin song in Moscow cathedral.
Russian police have detained at least 13 people demonstrating outside a court against the arrests of three members of a women’s punk rock group, witnesses say.
The court was to decide whether to extend the detention of the three women, part of the Pussy Riot group that performed a protest song against the president elect, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February.
About 60 of the group’s supporters chanted: “Freedom! Freedom!” outside the beige brick Moscow courthouse, and some released green, pink and yellow balloons with Pussy Riot’s trademark masks drawn on them.
Scuffles broke out when a Russian Orthodox bystander threw an egg at the husband of one of the three detainees. A Reuters reporter saw police drag at least 13 people off into police vans, two of them for throwing a smoke bomb.
The three women could face seven years in jail on hooliganism charges but deny taking part in the protest. No date has been set for the trial and the court was expected to extend their pre-trial detention.
Anger over their arrests has fuelled criticism of the Russian Orthodox church, whose status has improved vastly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and which has played an increasingly active role in politics since then.
Russians are divided over Pussy Riot’s “punk prayer” protest. Many believers were offended by the protest but some are also upset that church leaders have called for tough sentences in the case.
Patriarch Kirill, who has described the performance as part of an attack on the Russian Orthodox church, is also under fire over a lifestyle which critics say is lavish and unbecoming of the head of the church.
(Source: The Guardian)
