- Title: Pussy Riot members briefly detained after protest in Siberia
- Date: 7th August 2017
- Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PUSSY RIOT GROUP MEMBERS IN GLASS CAGE IN COURTROOM MARIA ALYOKHINA ALYOKHINA BEING LED HANDCUFFED FROM JAIL VAN INTO COURTHOUSE
- Embargoed: 21st August 2017 17:41
- Keywords: Pussy Riot Oleg Sentsov protest against jailing of Sentsov women in balaklavas
- Location: YAKUTSK, MOSCOW AND ROSTOV-ON-DON, RUSSIA
- City: YAKUTSK, MOSCOW AND ROSTOV-ON-DON, RUSSIA
- Country: Russia
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA0036T5SE9Z
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Two members of Russia's Pussy Riot protest group were briefly detained by police in the Siberian town of Yakutsk on Monday (August 7), a day after rallying in support of jailed Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov.
Maria Alyokhina and Olga Borisova, alongside activist Alexander Sofeyev, spent several hours in court but were later released without charges after police failed to provide necessary documents, the activists said.
Alyokhina and Borisova on Sunday (August 6) staged a protest on a bridge not far from a high-security penal colony where Sentsov is serving a 20-year sentence. The women, wearing black balaclavas unfurled a banner calling for Sentsov's release.
A Russian court in 2015 found Sentsov guilty of planning terror attacks in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula annexed by Russia the previous year.
The Crimea-born film director plead not guilty to the charges at the time of his court case and denounced the trial as politically driven.
Alyokhina along with another Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova spent nearly two years in prison after being convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" following a "punk prayer" protest in 2012 against Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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