Pussy Riot Members Sentenced to Two Years in Jail Each

Three members of a feminist punk band were found guilty on Friday of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for staging an anti-Kremlin protest in a church, in a case that supporters say put President Vladimir Putin's tolerance of dissent on trial. State prosecutors wanted the women from the Pussy Riot group jailed for three years. The judge, Marina Syrova, gave them two years in jail each. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, stormed the altar of Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February wearing bright ski masks, tights and short skirts and sang a "punk prayer" urging the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin. "Tolokonnikova, Samutsevich and Alyokhina committed an act of hooliganism, a gross violation of public order showing obvious disrespect for society," the judge said. Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich are educated, middle-class Russians who say their protest was intended to highlight close ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin, not to offend believers.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/uk-russia-pussyriot-idUKBRE87F0Y420120817
http://lenta.ru/news/2012/08/17/srok/
http://youtu.be/FoJqzGG7u_k (video)