2 Band Members in Russia Said to Flee to Avoid Arrest
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Version 0 of 1. MOSCOW — Two members of the punk collective Pussy Riot who had avoided being arrested for their anti-Kremlin demonstrations have fled Russia, the band announced in an online posting on Sunday. The band’s Twitter feed did not say where the two women had fled, or whether they had received political asylum after the conviction and jailing of three of their bandmates this month drew condemnation from many foreign governments and celebrities. These other two members of the band have never been publicly identified by the police, and they have been referred to only by the nicknames Balaclava and Serafima. “Two members have left the country because they are wanted,” the Twitter post said. “They are recruiting foreign feminists for new protest actions.” The announcement was confirmed in a telephone interview by Pyotr Verzilov, an informal spokesman for the band who is the husband of one of its jailed band members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. In another post, the Twitter account connected to the group said “at least 12 Pussy Riot members remain in Russia.” The band, a political performance art collective, sprang into prominence last winter during street protests in Moscow by pressing the boundaries of what appeared to be a new permissiveness in public political expression. Members, for example, performed in Red Square. But their global profile increased greatly after a videotaped performance inside Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral in which they sang a “punk prayer” asking the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir V. Putin. Three band members — Maria Alyokhina, 24, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Ms. Tolokonnikova, 22 — were arrested, and after a trial that made global headlines they were each sentenced Aug. 17 to two years in prison. Afterward, the police announced they were still searching for two others, but did not give their names. That suggests, perhaps, that the colorful ski masks that have become the group’s symbol were useful as more than just memorable stage costumes. The three detained members of the band had, during questioning, not revealed the identities of the others, Mark Feigin, one of the group’s defense lawyers, said in a telephone interview. He added that the other members often change and exchange their nicknames as part of a continuing cat-and-mouse game with the security services. Mr. Feigin said the two women wanted by the police may not have left Russia to evade arrest. The online post, he said, could just as well be a feint or misinformation issued for artistic or practical reasons by young women on the run. Though the group is said to include at least 12 members, only 4 were shown performing in the church video. One of those convicted, Ms. Samutsevich, had in fact been detained by guards for trying to enter with an electric guitar before the performance began; she is not in the video. She was nonetheless convicted of “hooliganism,” under a statute that applied to people acting as a group. The two others in the video, Balaclava and Serafima, were never found. The police have not charged the videographer, who is also still unidentified. |