Pussy Riot call for protest over Alexei Navalny sentencing

Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk band, has released a music video urging protest against the sentencing of Alexei Navalny. The Kremlin critic has been given a suspended sentence for embezzling money and his brother has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail in a case seen as part of a campaign to stifle dissent.

Twenty activists including Masha Alyokhina from Pussy Riot were arrested in Moscow on Wednesday yesterday, after staging an all-night protest against the conviction of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg.

Police took the protesters in two vans to Moscow’s Luzhniki police station. According to Bobrovsky, Alyokhina demanded her passport back. The officer told her: “Don’t worry, we’ll return it”, but failed to hand it over. Other arrested activists included Maria Baronova, Polina Nemerovskaya and German Petukhov. On Tuesday, Aloykhina and other members of Pussy Riot released a new video urging protesters to support the Navalny protest.

Police released Alyokhina and the other activists after holding them for three hours. “They said that they hadn’t arrested us [and were] just checking our passports, as usual,” Alyokhina said. She added that she was thinking of returning to Manezh square to stage another protest. In the meantime the authorities have blocked access to the giant Christmas ball.