Pussy Riot: symbol of the new anti-Putin opposition

Russian punk rockers Pussy Riot, whose two jailed members were freed in an amnesty on Monday, went from nearly unknown rebels to a global cause celebre for their defiant opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

The all girl band, with their home-made balaclavas and flashy neon dresses, decried repression of civic dissent under the Russian strongman in impromptu public performances.

Starting in October 2011, they staged shows in locations like a Moscow subway station and even the Red Square. But notoriety hit on February 21, 2012 when they climbed onto the altar of Moscow's biggest church for their most provocative stunt.

Before the gold-leaf Orthodox altarpiece, they jumped around and attempted to sing what they called a "punk prayer" entitled "Virgin Mary, Redeem Us of Putin".

As church security officials rushed into the Catherdral of Christ the Saviour to break up the performance, some of the band members escaped and their identities never made public.

But Maria Alyokhina, 25, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 31, were identified, later arrested and in August found guilty on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

Samutsevich was released in October after being given a suspended sentence, but a Moscow city court upheld on appeal the two-year prison camp terms for Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina -- both mothers of young children.

Each woman had barely two months left to serve when they walked free on Monday.

Pugnacious even on release, they denounced the amnesty as a publicity stunt and vowed to continue fighting for the rights of prisoners.

Some in the Russian opposition movement feel the ?athedral performance was ill-judged and in poor taste.

But the women's plight became a rallying cause for anti-Putin activists outraged by what they called the severity of the sentence.

Above all, they came to symbolise a new breed of young opposition activists embracing the Internet and willing to use bold, novel methods to challenge Putin's authority.

And their jailing echoed far beyond Russian borders, sparking a wave of international condemnation and support from luminaries ranging from Madonna to Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

NADEZHDA TOLOKONNIKOVA

Tolokonnikova was born in the Norilsk nickel mining city above the Arctic Circle that Stalin developed using Soviet prison labour.

She studied at Russia's top-rated Moscow State University and is married to Pyotr Verzilov, one of the leading members of the controversial Voina (War) performance art group to which Pussy Riot is closely linked. They have a young daughter.

But most notoriously, Tolokonnikova, Verzilov and several Voina members had public sex in a Moscow biological museum in 2008 -- a stunt to mock Putin's protege Dmitry Medvedev whose name means bear.

Tolokonnikova, heavily pregnant at the time, gave birth days later.

During the trial and appeals process, Tolokonnikova always insisted that the cathedral "punk prayer" was aimed against Putin, not religious believers.

After her appeal was rejected, Tolokonnikova was sent to Penal Colony Number 14 in the central Russian region of Mordovia where she had repeated brushes with other inmates and prison authorities.

She went on hunger strike after releasing a letter complaining that women at the penal colony were treated like "slaves" and worked 17-hour days in a sewing workshop.

Tolokonnikova was then moved to a new prison in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region, where she was kept at a hospital for convicts rather than the prison itself.

"Prisoners should be treated like normal human beings ... not like trash," the telegenic brunette said after her release, vowing to create alongside Alyokhina a rights group for prisoners.

MARIA ALYOKHINA

The single mother of a young son was an environmental activist who has campaigned over passionate defence of a small forest outside Moscow.

A slight figure with curly hair, Alyokhina is a highly articulate individual and gave graphic descriptions about the routine of her prison life in Corrective Labour Colony No 28 in the Perm region of the Urals.

She was then moved to a facility in the Nizhny Novgorod region after proving "inconvenient" for the Russian prison authorities, according to her lawyer.

After her release, she told the Dozhd channel that given the choice she would have stayed in prison as the amnesty that released her was a sham.

"I don't think it's an amnesty, it's a profanation," she said. "I don't think the amnesty is a humanitarian act, I think it's a PR stunt."

She said she planned to continue fighting for the rights of her fellow inmates in the Nizhny Novgorod prison camp whose rights she said were being violated.

"The hardest thing in prison was to see how people give up, they lose heart, and turn into a mass," she said.

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Amnestied Pussy Riot pair criticise Putin after release

By Maria Vasilyeva and Nikolai Isayev

KRASNOYARSK/NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia (Reuters) - Two members of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot freed from prison on Monday derided President Vladimir Putin's amnesty that led to their early release as a propaganda stunt and promised to fight for human rights.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, shouted "Russia without Putin" following her release from a Siberian prison, hours after band mate Maria Alyokhina, 25, was freed from jail in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod.

The women had two months left to serve but walked free days after a pardon from Putin freed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky eight months before the end of his more than 10-year jail term, decisions widely seen as intended to improve Russia's image before it hosts the Winter Olympics in February.

"It is a disgusting and cynical act," Tolokonnikova, looking relaxed in a black coat and chequered shirt, told Reuters at her grandmother's apartment building in the snowbound Siberian city of Kransoyarsk where she was jailed.

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were sentenced to two years in prison for a profanity-laced protest against Putin in a Russian Orthodox church in 2012 after a trial Kremlin critics said was part of a clampdown on dissent in his third presidential term.

The case caused an outcry in the West, but there was much less sympathy for the women at home than abroad. They had been due for release in early March.

Putin, who denies jailing people for political reasons, has said the amnesty would show that the Russian state is humane.

The measure, however, does not benefit opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is barred from elections for years by a five-year suspended sentence on a theft charge he says was Kremlin revenge for his activism. Putin, in power since 2000, has not ruled out seeking another six-year term in 2018.

Alyokhina echoed critics who said the amnesty was far too narrow and not an act of mercy but a political ply by Putin.

"I do not think it is a humanitarian act, I think it is a PR stunt," she said in comments to the Russian Internet and TV channel Dozhd. "My attitude to the president has not changed."

Tolokonnikova, who staged a hunger strike earlier this year and drew attention to stark conditions and long hours of mandatory labour in the jail where she was previously held, said she would fight for prisoners' rights.

"Everything is just starting, so fasten your seat belts," she said, suggesting Pussy Riot - jailed for a "punk prayer" in the main cathedral of Russia's dominant faith - would continue to use attention-grabbing protests to make their point.

"We will unite our efforts in our human rights activity," Alyokhina said in Nizhny Novgorod. "We will try to sing our the song to the end."

"I'M NOT AFRAID"

Bundled in a thick green prison jacket and with her long curly hair loose, Alyokhina said she would have rejected the amnesty if that been a option. She said she wants to focus on fighting for the rights of those still behind bars.

"I'm not afraid of anything anymore, believe me," she said.

In an about-face, Putin unexpectedly pardoned Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos oil company chief who had been in jail since his arrest in 2003 and conviction in two trials that critics said were punishment for challenging the Kremlin leader.

Khodorkovsky, who was freed on Friday and flown to Germany, said Putin is seeking to improve his image while also showing that he is confident in his grip on power after weathering large opposition protests and winning a third term last year.

Putin wants to send "a signal to society and the world that he feels secure and is not afraid", said Khodorkovsky, who supporters feared would remain in jail throughout Putin's tenure, in an interview with Russian magazine the New Times.

The amnesty is also expected to spare from trial 30 people arrested after a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling. They face charges punishable by up to seven years' in jail.

A pro-Kremlin lawmaker said he thought the amnesty and pardon would help to remove irritants in ties with the West.

"Political grievances against Russia will shrink somewhat," Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia's parliament, said.

But Putin has said the amnesty was not drafted with the Greenpeace activists or Pussy Riot in mind. In an annual news conference last week, he described Pussy Riot's protest as disgraceful, saying it "went beyond all boundaries".

Rights activists have estimated the amnesty will free fewer than 1,500 of the 564,000 convicts in Russian prisons. Another 114,000 people are in pre-trial detention, the government says.

A third Pussy Riot member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was freed last year when a judge suspended her sentence on appeal.

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Steve Gutterman and Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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