A new Amnesty Law put into effect by Russian President and very manly man Vladimir Putin this week has seen the two remaining jailed members of Julian Assange’s favourite punk band Pussy Riot freed from prison, having been incarcerated for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” after an anti-Putin protest performance at a Moscow Cathedral in March 2012.
Pussy Rioters Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who have spent 19 months jailed in conditions they described as “slave labour” and who saw the campaign for their freedom become the celebritorial cause du jour the world over, have criticised the Amnesty that allowed their freedom, labelling it a PR stunt by the Russian government. Alyokhina told the New York Times “that she did not want amnesty”, and that she would have remained in prison for the remaining three months of her sentence had officials not forced her to leave, saying of the Amnesty “I think this is an attempt to improve the image of the current government, a little, before the Sochi Olympics — particularly for the Western Europeans,” and adding “I don’t need mercy from Putin.”
A third band member of Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released in October 2012. Putin’s Amnesty has also seen oil tycoon and outspoken Government critic Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky pardoned after being jailed in 2003 for tax evasion and fraud, and is likely to prompt the release of the Greenpeace 30 Arctic oil drilling protesters.
It’s certainly possible that the Russian Government is trying to give themselves and image makeover – this year, they’ve been widely critised for their archaic anti-gay stance, which saw Stephen Fry call for a boycott of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and which is so archaic and frustrating it makes you want to nail your balls to the floor.
Via the New York Times. Photo by AFP.
