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Two members of Pussy Riot detained in Sochi for four hours, complain of rough treatment Two members of Pussy Riot detained in Sochi for four hours, complain of rough treatment
(about 7 hours later)
SOCHI, Russia — Two members of the protest group Pussy Riot, released from prison two months ago, were detained by police here Tuesday for about four hours. The women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, said they were picked up in downtown Sochi and treated roughly before they were let go. SOCHI, Russia – The two performance artists known as Pussy Riot – who served nearly two years in prison for singing a protest song on the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral – made a surprise visit here Tuesday and soon found themselves in familiar surroundings: the inside of a police station.
In tweets from a police van, Tolokonnikova said they had planned to make a video of a song: “Putin Will Teach You How to Love Your Motherland.” The women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, accompanied by three other performers, local activists and a photographer, said they were walking on a downtown Sochi street, nearly 20 miles from the Olympic Park, when police swooped in. All nine were taken in for questioning about a purse stolen at their hotel.
They were picked up in a part of the city well clear of the Olympics and taken to a police station in Sochi’s Adler section, which is not far from the Olympic Park. Seven others — journalists and activists who were accompanying them — were swept up, too. One by one, the detained were released, all without charges. After four hours inside the station, the Pussy Riot women appeared, singing their latest song — “Putin will teach you how to love your Motherland.” They were wearing their familiar ski masks — unseen since their imprisonment. A crowd of journalists had dashed over from Olympic Park, waiting in the rain to hear their story.
All were released and greeted by a crowd of journalists waiting outside the police station. It was a dramatic one.
Semyon Simonov, a human rights activist who was also detained, told The Washington Post by cellphone from the police van that police said the Pussy Riot members were picked up as witnesses to a theft in a hotel. The environmentalists and human rights defenders who live here, however, call it a typical tale of the repressive measures imposed since Olympic construction began in Sochi.
The two women were released from prison in December under an amnesty announced by President Vladimir Putin after serving nearly two years on charges of hooliganism. They had been convicted of singing a brief protest song criticizing Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church at the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral. Since their release, they have been campaigning for prison reform and considering entering politics. “The city is under total police and security control,” Tolokonnikova, 25, said after their release. They had arrived Sunday evening, she said, and had been constantly stopped. On Tuesday, she said, they were roughly treated. Although they planned to make a video of their Putin song in support of suppressed protesters, she said, they were doing nothing provocative when they were stopped.
Their detention raised a torrent of criticism and disbelief on Twitter. Sochi has been a closed city since early January, an Olympic security measure. President Vladimir Putin has banned all protests, except for a designated spot in a park seven miles from the Olympics, where permits are required. And police have been quick to prevent any sign of demonstrations. An Italian transgender activist, Vladi­mir Luxuria, was hustled out of the Olympic Park on Monday when she tried to go to a hockey game wearing a bright rainbow headdress.
“What idiots to detain them in the middle of the Olympics,” tweeted Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader in Moscow. Referring to the U.S. public relations firm that represents the Kremlin, he wrote: “No Ketchum agency can help them here.” On Tuesday, the Pussy Riot group was near the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, Sochi’s oldest Orthodox church, when they were loaded into police vans.
From Novosibirsk in Siberia, Alex Voronkov tweeted that the Winter Games underway could well become known as the Pussy Riot Olympics. “Maybe that’s what made the police nervous,” Olga Noskovets, an environmentalist here, said later. “Maybe they thought they would dash into the church and cause a scandal.”
David Khakim, an environmental activist who was sentenced Monday to 30 hours of labor for picketing in support of an imprisoned colleague, was among the group being taken to the police station. So was a photographer for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Evgeny Feldman. Noskovets had taken the group around the city by car Monday. Not far from the Olympic Park, they were stopped by border police, she said, who demanded to know whether they had permission to be in the city.
The two women said they were also detained on Saturday and Sunday. Tolokonnikova said police told them they were “wanted.” “We were in a residential neighborhood,” she said, “and there were so many police people came out of their houses to watch.”
The song they were working on, they said, was in support of protesters who are now on trial or imprisoned. As they were detained Tuesday, a trial was beginning in Moscow, where Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev are accused of inciting mass rioting in connection with a protest on the eve of Putin’s inauguration as president in May 2012. Udaltsov has been under house arrest for more than a year. Razvozzhayev complained he was kidnapped in Ukraine by Russian security forces and brought to Moscow for trial. Eventually, the police let them go, except for Noskovets, who got in trouble because she did not have her passport with her and was taken to the police station, fingerprinted, put in a database and fined about $15.
The song, Tolokonnikova said, would also be in support of the “Bolotnaya” prisoners, who are on trial in Moscow for taking part in the same protest. She said another figure in the song was Evgeny Vitishko, sentenced last week to three years in a labor camp for environmental activism in the Sochi region. Another environmentalist, David Khakim, was with the Pussy Riot group Tuesday and was also picked up. On Monday, Khakim was sentenced to 30 hours of labor for holding up a sign in support of Evgeny Vitishko, an environmentalist sentenced to three years in a labor colony.
“I think the police were afraid they would perform,” Khakim said.
Semyon Simonov, a human rights defender who has been working on behalf of migrant workers employed in Olympic construction, was also detained with the women. He asserted that the stolen purse case had been fabricated.
“Everyone knows how easy it is to bring false charges,” he said.
In a statement, police said the investigation was real. “They were interrogated in connection with complaints received from the hotel in which they are staying, concerning an incident of theft,” the statement said.
Tolokonnikova, 25, and Alyokhina, 26, were released from prison in December, under an amnesty announced by Putin. Their imprisonment had made them an international cause celebre. Since their release, they have been campaigning for prison reform and considering entering politics.
Their detention raised a torrent of criticism and disbelief on Twitter. “What idiots to detain them in the middle of the Olympics,” tweeted 3 Navalny, an opposition leader in Moscow. Referring to the U.S. public relations firm that represents the Kremlin, he wrote: “No Ketchum agency can help them here.”
From Novosibirsk in Siberia, a tweeter named Alex Voronkov wrote that the Winter Games underway here could well become known as the Pussy Riot Olympics.
The song they were working on, Tolokonnikova said, was in support of protesters who are now on trial or imprisoned. On Tuesday, a trial began in Moscow against Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev, accused of inciting mass rioting in connection with a protest on the eve of Putin’s inauguration as president in May 2012. Udaltsov has been under house arrest for more than a year. Razvozzhayev complained that he was kidnapped in Ukraine by Russian security forces and brought to Moscow for trial. A verdict is expected by the end of the week in the trial of several “Bolotnaya” prisoners, accused of violence in the same protest.
The detentions Tuesday, Noskovets said, only brought more attention to Pussy Riot and their cause.
“No one knew they were here,” she said. “Now it’s news No. 1.”