Pop singer Madonna urged Russia on Monday not to jail three women from the punk band Pussy Riot for staging a protest in a church, while jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky likened their trial to a medieval inquisition.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, face up to seven years in jail for storming the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral on February 21 and belting out a “punk prayer” calling on the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister who has since returned to the presidency.
Madonna weighed into a trial which the opposition says is part of a wider crackdown on dissent by Putin after the biggest protests since he rose to power in 2000.
In Moscow to give a concert and open a branch of her own fitness club, the American singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and actor added her voice to other international singers such as Sting and Red Hot Chili Peppers who have appealed for leniency.
“I am against censorship and throughout my whole career I’ve always promoted freedom of expression, freedom of speech. So obviously, I think that what happened to them (Pussy Riot) is unfair,” Madonna, whose songs include ‘Like a Virgin’ and ‘Like a Prayer’ and have also courted controversy, told Reuters Television.
“I hope they do not have to serve seven years in jail. That would be a tragedy,” she said. “I think art should be political. Historically speaking, art always reflects what’s going on socially. So for me, it’s hard to separate the idea of being an artist and being political.”
The band’s stunt infuriated church leaders and the Kremlin and upset many Orthodox Christian believers for whom the Christ the Saviour Cathedral is a sacred place of worship and its pulpit a place reserved exclusively for priests.
Accused of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, the three woman on trial said they wanted their performance to be considered as a political act directed against the church merging with state security services.
“There is a big difference between criticism and hatred. Protest is not hatred and it is not violence,” Alyokhina told the court on Monday.
Reuters
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