President Vladimir Putin has initiated an amnesty that could lead to the release of more than 25,000 prisoners in Russia which would include the two jailed members of the Art- Punk group Pussy Riot. According to NDTV, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina whose term expires in March will likely be out on early release. The amnesty covers first time offenders and mothers of small children.
The Artists are currently serving a two-year sentences for staging a political performance protest at Moscow’s main Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which included the filming of a music video titled “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!” A third member of the group, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was freed on appeal in October 2012. A lawyer for Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina told The New York Times yesterday she expected a swift release.
“I was not sorry that [the Pussy Riot members] ended up behind bars,” Putin said at his annual press conference, according to NDTV. “I was sorry that they were engaged in such disgraceful behavior, which in my view was degrading to the dignity of women. They went beyond all boundaries.”
The amnesty proposed by President Putin and passed unanimously by the State Duma on Wednesday, will free all those convicted of or being prosecuted for “hooliganism”, including the so-called “Arctic 30.” and the performance artist, Pyotr Pavlensky who nailed his scrotum to the pavement in Red Square earlier this autumn.
Pavlensky could have faced up to five years in prison. A Russian report stated that the 29-year-old artist charged with hooliganism, the same charge as art/punk band Pussy Riot and the Greenpeace activists, whose ship the Arctic Sunrise was seized during a protest. The hooliganism charge has been used as a catch-all for most breaches of public order.