Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina Detained In Siberia For Oleg Sentsov Protest

Pussy Riot Detained In Siberia

Members of the art-punk band Pussy Riot were detained by Police in Siberia on Monday after they staging a protest in support of the jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year term for “terrorist” offences in Yakutsk, which is 5,000 kilometres (3,000 miles) east of Moscow.

“We’re going to the police station… on suspicion of holding an unsanctioned rally.”

Maria Alyokhina, who was previously jailed for a staging a protest against President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow’s cathedral wrote on Twitter that she and Olga Borisova were being held in Yakutsk. Alyokhina tweeted that they were taken to a police station after protesting in support of filmmaker

Borisova, in a video from a police car posted on Twitter, added: “We’re going to the police station… on suspicion of committing an administrative offence, (holding) an unsanctioned rally.” The two band members were detained for several hours before the judge ruled that the police had incorrectly filled out paperwork and both women were released, Borisova said.

Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina Detained In Siberia
Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina Detained In Siberia

Alyokhina posted photos and a video of their brief protest on a bridge, calling Sentsov’s case “one of the key political cases in the history of our country.”

The women wore the group’s brightly coloured balaclavas and set off flares along with a banner saying “Free Sentsov.” Sentsov was convicted for masterminding arson attacks on pro-Kremlin party offices in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014. His case has been widly denounced by the West and filmmakers around the world continue to speak out in support for him.

Maria Alyokhina of the Feminist Punk collective Pussy Riot recently announced a new play based on her Russian prison ordeal. The immersive theatrical piece titled  “Inside Pussy Riot,” will take place at the Saatchi Gallery for a six-week run in London. The play includes an interactive set in where the audience live through the rockers’ experience. She is collaborating with London theater company Les Enfants Terribles.

Tolokonnikova said she developed the piece out of fear that more people will be targeted for their political views amid a rise of “authoritarian and right-wing misogynist tendencies” around the world — in which she includes the election of US President Donald Trump. “It was really important to communicate to people that’s what happened to us can happen with anybody. We wanted to show people in their own skin what it means to be a prisoner.”

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