Pussy Riot members fall ill

Agence France-Presse

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Are they or are they not being treated fairly?

RUSSIAN PUNK BAND PUSSY Riot. Photo from Facebook

MOSCOW, Russia – The 3 members of an all-girl punk band who performed an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a Russian Orthodox cathedral required medical attention on Wednesday, August 1, during their high-profile trial.

Court officials and lawyers said the 3rd day of witness testimony was interrupted and a team of doctors called in when the 3 women of the band Pussy Riot — all in their 20s — made an unspecified health complaint.

“According to court employees, they started to feel sick. There are no other details,” defence attorney Nikolai Polozov tweeted.

The lawyer separately told news agency Interfax that the 3 band members — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina — were being woken up at 5:00 am at their detention center to attend the closely watched hearings. They are also not fed for periods of over 12 hours.

“They are brought back to their temporary detention center after midnight, are left without dinner and can only get a few hours of sleep,” Polozov told the news agency.

An official court spokesman said that medics completed their examination of the 3 band members and concluded that they were fit to stand trial.

Tolokonnikova, Samutsevich and Alekhina — who face up to 7 years in jail if found guilty of hooliganism — testified on Monday, July 30, that they had wanted to change Russia with their action but could have made an “ethical” mistake by offending worshippers of the Orthodox church.

The controversial case has won them supporters among major Western arts stars. It was condemned on Tuesday by the US State Department.

Russian Orthodox Church leaders have demanded strict punishment of the band members’ actions. Leading members of the country’s political elite support these demands. – Agence France-Presse

Here is a video of Pussy Riot’s now-famous (or infamous, depending on how you see it) anti-Putin church performance:


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