MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) – Members of the feminist punk protest group Pussy Riot claim they were attacked by Cossacks during a performance in the Winter Olympic host city of Sochi on Wednesday.
“Pussy Riot was attacked by Cossacks while singing the song ‘Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland’ near a Sochi 2014 banner. [They] whipped [us] and sprayed pepper gas,” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova wrote on Twitter.
Another member of the group, Maria Alyokhina, posted several photos of what she claimed were injures they sustained during the attack.
“Police did not react,” she said.
The Cossacks, who originally hailed from the southern border areas of Russia and are known for their social conservatism, were used to ruthlessly quell popular rebellion in czarist times and were repressed under the Soviets.
They are currently regaining a semi-official role in Russia and sometimes carry out self-appointed vigilante police duties that are now becoming officially authorized in some parts of the country, including Moscow.
In a move reminiscent of czarist Russia, over 400 Cossacks arrived in Sochi in early January to help police maintain order during the Games, which run through February 23.
Alyohkina and Tolokonnikova were released from prison under amnesty in December. They had been serving two-year sentences after being convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for taking part in an anti-Kremlin protest staged by Pussy Riot in Moscow’s main cathedral in 2012.
The two women were detained by police in Sochi on Tuesday along with several other people over a reported theft at a local hotel, before being released with no charges.
No comments :
Post a Comment