MARIA ALYOKHINA
Maria Alyokhina (born June 6, 1988 in Moscow) is a Russian political activist. She is a member of the anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot. On August 17, 2012, she was convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for a performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. She has been recognized as a political prisoner by the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners. Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience due to “the severity of the response of the Russian authorities”. She has been involved in environmental activism with Greenpeace Russia, opposing development projects in the Khimki Forest, and was a volunteer at the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in Moscow. (More from Wikipedia)
In August 2012, the Russian government charged three of the bandmembers in Pussy Riot – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”; that’s rich considering that Russia’s government was vehemently atheistic barely two decades ago. While Samutsevich was later freed on appeal, the other two women were sentenced in October 2012 to two years in prison.
A sweeping amnesty law that was passed in Russia in late December 2013 has ended their sentence. Although this law was derided as a publicity stunt in preparation for the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics, it seems to me that we could use some amnesty in this country also.
(December 2013)
