Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of activist band Pussy Riot, was arrested in Moscow for participating in a public protest.
Tolokonnikova and fellow activist Katherine Nenasheva were protesting in Bolotnaya square on Russia Day. The two women were sewing a Russian flag while wearing prison uniforms and were detained for several hours before being let go, according to Pitchfork. A spokesman for the area’s police force said that the women were arrested for “committing a public nuisance,” while Tolokonnikova told Newsweek that the arresting officers told them it was illegal to sew in a public place.
Tolokonnikova and fellow Pussy Riot member Masha Alekhina were last arrested together during protest outside of a Moscow courthouse in February 2014. Maria Alyokhina, another member of Pussy Riot, was arrested at the end of 2014 for protesting a prison sentence of an opposition leader in Moscow. As a group with a lot of experience with the prison system, Pussy Riot founded prisoners’ rights group in spring 2014 and began Russian independent news service in fall of the same year.
Despite all of the protests that the women of Pussy Riot participate in and the amount of times they have been arrested for it, they continue to make new music. In February 2015, they released a video for their first English-language song, called “I Can’t Breathe.” The track is dedicated to Eric Garner, who the band describes as someone who was “killed, choked, perished because of war and state sponsored violence of all kinds.” In March, they released “Don’t Cry Genocide,” a collaboration with Le Tigre for the Netflix series House of Cards.
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