Pussy Riot members released

Three months before they were due out Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Mariya Alyokhina were released. They immediately announced that this was all a farce and that they would continue to fight for other prisoners. Then they made themselves coffee, lit cigarettes and got on the phone. Way to go girls!

Tolokonnikova applies for parole ....

.... but her prison refuses to support her application.

A commission that assesses prison inmate behavior has decided against supporting Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's bid for parole, chairman of Mordovia's public monitoring committee Gennady Morozov told RIA Novosti.

Tolokonnikova is serving a two year prison sentence in Mordovia for the band's "punk prayer" at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral.

The commission is declining to support Tolokonnikova's parole application because of prison rule violations and because she has shown no remorse. The prison's stand will be forwarded to the court, which will rule on the band member's parole application.

Showing no remorse is a heinous crime as we all know but prison rule violations ought to weigh more heavily. It seems that there have not been any problems and no disciplinary action  has been started against Nadezhda Tolokonnikova but she did, according to her guards, go to the medical ward once without permission. As no disciplinary procedure has followed that action, one can't help wondering about it.

Latest on Pussy Riot

6.35pm Moscow time Alyokhina's appeal rejected. She will serve her sentence in full.
6.30pm Moscow time Court has resumed.

One of the young women sentenced to two years of hard labour, Mariay Alyokhina, is back in court but this time on her own initiative. She is appealing to have her sentence (of which she has served a chunk already) suspended as she has a young son, Philip. to look after.

According to the BBC Russian Service [in Russian] the Procurator's office opposes this appeal on the grounds that Alyokhina has already had six reprimands from the authorities. The hearing had been scheduled to take place in Penal Colony No. 28 where Alyokhina is serving her sentence but her defence and human rights activists managed to change that to the court building in Bereznikov in the Perm region. (Yes, do have a look on the map.)

The hearing has been going on for some time with Alyokhina being questioned about her son and whether she had ever taken him to public meetings (according to her, not) and whether she had taken him to various educational undertakings, as well as about the various reprimands about such matters as appearing at the morning line-up late (according to her because it is hard to hear the order to get up) and, more to the point, answering back to the guards. Alyokhina's defence lawyer maintains that people have displayed a friendlier attitude to her because of the latter.

The Russian Legal Information Service (RAPSI) is running a live blog or text broadcast on the proceedings in a somewhat idiosyncratic English. At present the court has taken a break but will be back at 3pm GMT, that is 6pm Moscow time and 9pm local time.

East of Moscow

The two Pussy Riot members still in prison, Mariya Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been sent off to fairly stiff camps, the first to the Perm region, the second to Mordova. A helpful map is provided by the BBC in its story. So far there is no information as to which camps they will be in but they were sentenced to ordinary regime (which is quite bad enough).

Pussy Riot - latest

On appeal the sentence on Yekaterina Samutsevich (who did not, in fact, take part in the famous or infamous  "punk prayer") has been suspended. The other two will serve it in full.

There were cheers in court when the two-year jail term of Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was suspended. 

Earlier the trio spoke defiantly at the appeal hearing, saying their protest song was political and not anti-Church.

Not anti-Church, maybe, and not anti-religion, certainly but the protest was anti the Church hierarchy, which is far too close to the Putin regime. Historians of Russia and of the later part of the Soviet Union would argue that there is nothing unusual in that.

Pussy Riot verdict and sentence

15.28: Defence lawyers have announced that they will appeal the sentence, going to the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.

15.13: Sentence will start from day of arrest, that is March 3, 2012 for Alekhina and Tolokonnikova and March 15 for Samusevitch.

15.04: Again from the Guardian "The judge has said they are sane and should be punished in accordance with the law.

 She has listed attenuating circumstances including children (of two defendants), a lack of previous crime and positive character profiles.

 The court concludes that it is not possible to change the charges and make them less grave, "there are no exclusive circumstances to do that".

 And at the same time the motives of the crime and the attitude, the court deems that to restore social justices if they serve a real jail sentence.

 And... they will serve jail sentence in prison, the judge has said." The BBC Russian Service implies that they will be serving their sentence in a penal colony.

14.57: Finally the sentence - two years in ordinary regime camps. Could have been a good deal worse.

14.46: From the Guardian update: "The judge has outlined three specific elements for finding guilt:

 1. The choice and timing of venue

 2. Their continued performance and resistance to be taken outside by security and cathedral parishioners

 3. And the defendant's conduct and their accomplices afterwards." In fact, they left when asked to do so and were not arrested till a week afterwards.

14.39: From the Guardian update: "Posting of the video was proof of the band trying to gain publicity by their hooligan actions, the judge has said adding,"They have deliberately placed themselves against Orthodox believers." She's also said that the "jerking of limbs" during the performance was further proof of hatred towards Christians.

14.33: From the judges summing up: feminism is not a crime in the Russian federation. (That's a relief.) On the other hand, the girls of Pussy Riot did undermine the state's constitutional structures. Also, while one cannot deny the shock and pain experienced by those who were there and who have provided the testimony against the girls, the defence argument that Pussy Riot were not motivated by religious hatred cannot be accepted. Looks bad.

14.17: The judge has been reading the verdict for two hours and everyone has to stand while listening to it in a hot and stuffy court room. Goodness knows what it must be like in that glass cage.

14.12: Oh this is priceless: apparently during his arrest Kasparov bit a police officer who has now gone to seek medical assistance.

UPDATE 13.51: More arrests outside the court though it is not clear what people are being arrested for. As the old NKVD saying had it: give us a man and we shall have a case. Or for my Russian readers: Был- бо человек, дело найдётся.

UPDATE 13.45: One of the defence lawyers, Nikolay Polozov, had tweeted that the judge seems to have read about a third of the papers in front of her. This can run and run. It is 16.45 in Moscow.

UPDATE 13.39: Guardian: "In summing up the prosecution case, the judge is saying that prayers in a Russian cathedral can only be offered by a priest and not by ordinary members of the public so making their protest-as-prayer against church rules anyway."

UPDATE 13.30: Arrests are continuing. Three carloads have been taken away. Garry Kasparov's Facebook page confirms his arrest and publishes picture.

UPDATE 13.25:One anti-Pussy Riot twitter has demanded that they should be punished according to their deserts. It's a pity, the tweet continued, that the sponsors and organizers will not be punished. Because young women would never, never have been able to think of a political action.

UPDATE 13.18: One twitter comment refers to the vocabulary of the verdict - references to satanism, people being filled with spiritual pain, being mesmerized, etc. "We are waiting for the fire to be lit in the centre of the court."

UPDATE 13.06 "For Honest Elections" has tweeted a summons to all who can to come to the court as soon as they can finish work in order to support the girls. Moscow is three hours ahead of us.

Apologies for not timing the previous updates. I knew there was something wrong.

UPDATE 12.55: More arrests outside the court among supporters of the group. Some of the police inside have now come out.

UPDATE: The judge summed up with the following words, which are surprisingly accurate though she obviously does not think so:

It was a small act but maybe not a very elegant act but they consider that it is the country which is sick. For them, individuals are not important, they consider that education in Russia is still in the Soviet mould. And that there is still cruelty in the country and that prison is a miniature of Russia itself.

UPDATE: More police outside the court and more arrests are reported. Everything is still uncertain.

UPDATE: The judge seems to be heading towards a stiff sentence in her emphasis on the conspiracy and thorough planning of the punk event. The police has closed round the glass cage in which the defendants are sitting.

I am trying hard to follow what is going on in Moscow inside and outside the Khamovnichesky court. The verdict is still being delivered but the girls have been found guilty of hooliganism, which is not a surprise.

Outside there are scuffles between supporters and opponents while the police seems to be arresting various supporters of the group. Already gone is Left Front opposition leader Sergey Udaltsov and, apparently, Garry Kasparov.