A Russian judge delivers a verdict on Friday against three members of the Pussy Riot punk band whose trial for staging an anti-Kremlin protest in a church has provoked an international outcry against President Vladimir Putin.
The state prosecutor has demanded a three-year jail sentence over the women’s storming of the altar under the golden domes of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in bright balaclavas, tights and short skirts, an act she called an abuse of God.
Putin’s opponents portray the trial as part of a wider crackdown by the former KGB spy to crush their protest movement and pop stars led by Madonna have campaigned for the women’s release in a case Washington says is politically motivated.
In a sign of the tension over the trial in a small Moscow courtroom, which has divided Russian Orthodox Christians, Judge Marina Syrova was assigned bodyguards on Thursday following what authorities said were threats against her.
«I am not afraid of your poorly concealed fraud of a verdict in this so-called court because it can deprive me of my freedom,» Maria Alyokhina, 24, one of the defendants, said during the trial. «No one will take my inner freedom away.»
Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, say their protest on Feb. 21 was intended to highlight the close ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and state, and not to offend believers.
Their lawyers say they have not received a fair trail and the verdict will be dictated by the Kremlin.
Putin’s supporters deny this and portray the women as blasphemers and self-publicists who should be punished for committing a premeditated outrage against the Church.
«It was a conscious deed. They understood quite clearly where they were going and why,» said Vladimir Burmatov, who represents Putin’s United Russia party in parliament.
Judge Syrova will start reading the verdict at 3 p.m. (1100 GMT) and could hand down a sentence by the evening on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald