Over the course of the last week, Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina have been arrested on two separate occasions as well as attacked by Russian police in preparation for video shoot. The duo’s most recent arrest came following their trial protest, outside a Moscow court, of eight opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tolokonnikova and Alekhina, along with fellow Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samsutsevich and two other bandmates, had initially been arrested in March 2012 for performance protest of Putin, and sentenced to two years in prison. Samsutsevich was freed on probation in October 2012, and the other two fled the country, but Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were left behind bars until an amnesty bill was approved by Russian Parliament in December 2013.
Following their release, Tolokonnikova and Alekhina worked to share their struggles by speaking at the Amnesty International Concert in Brooklyn, and appearing on The Colbert Report. Following this, an open letter was published, supposedly from Pussy Riot, announcing the two were no longer with the band. Tolokonnikova and Alekhina responded by stating they were unsure who the letter was from, saying it didn’t “… follow the ideology of Pussy Riot,” and that “…no one can be excluded from Pussy Riot. Pussy Riot can only grow.”
On February 18th, the duo were arrested and held by police for more than 10 hours over alleged theft at their hotel, but were released without charges. After the police harassment at their video shoot, Tolokonnikova and Alekhina joined 100 others to protest the trial of eight individuals that had been arrested in 2012 for a Putin protest, the night before he was re-elected as President. All of the defendants were found guilty and face up to four years behind bars, but the consequences are yet to be known for Tolokonnikova and Alekhina’s arrest at the protest.
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