Pussy Riot calls for boycott of Olympics

A member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot has called for foreign countries to boycott February’s Winter Olympics, hours after she was freed from jail.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova dismissed the amnesty law that set her free, saying it was a “cosmetic measure”.

Tolokonnikova and bandmate Maria Alekhina were granted amnesty last week in a move largely viewed as the Kremlin’s attempt to soothe criticism of Russia’s human rights record.

The third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on a suspended sentence months after all three were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in prison for the performance at Moscow’s main cathedral in Mar 2012.

The band members said their protest was meant to raise their concern about increasingly close ties between the state and the church.

Russian parliament passed the amnesty bill last week, allowing the release of thousands of inmates. Alekhina and Tolokonnikova, who were due for release in March, qualified for amnesty because they have small children.

There has been an international outcry over Russia’s human rights record, including for passing a law earlier this year that bans so-called homosexual propaganda among minors, which gay groups in Russia and abroad say feeds the existing enmity toward gay people in the country.

Tolokonnikova walked out of a prison in the eastern Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk yesterday, smiling to reporters and flashing a V sign.

“How do you like our Siberian weather here?” said Tolokonnikova, wearing a down jacket but no hat or scarf in -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees Fahrenheit). Tolokonnikova said she and Alekhina will set up a human rights group to help prisoners.

Tolokonnikova said the way prisons are run reflects the way Russia is governed.

“I saw this small totalitarian machine from the inside,” the 24-year-old said. “Russia functions the same way the prison colony does.”

Alekhina, who was released earlier yesterday from a prison outside the Volga river city of Nizhny Novgorod, said she would have stayed behind bars to serve her term if she was free to turn it down.

“If I had a chance to turn it down, I would have done it, no doubt about that,” she told Dozhd TV. “This is not an amnesty. This is a hoax and a PR move.”

She said the amnesty bill covers less than 10% of the prison population and only a fraction of women with children behind bars. Women convicted of grave crimes, even if they have children, are not eligible for amnesty.

Alekhina said that prison officials did not give her a chance to say goodbye to cell mates, but put her in a car and drove her to the train station in downtown Nizhny Novgorod. Before seeing her family and friends, she met with local rights activists and said she will work on defending human rights.