Russia's Pussy Riot sentenced to two years in prison

A Russian judge on Friday sentenced three members of the punk band Pussy Riot to two years in prison each after finding them guilty on charges of hooliganism and incitement to religious hatred, DPA reported.

Reaction to the verdict drew international condemnation, as the trial has been widely seen as a test case of Kremlin tolerance for open dissent.

Defendants Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Ekaterina Samuzevich intentionally broke the law when they performed a song criticizing relations between President Valdimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church in a Moscow cathedral, judge Marina Syrova ruled.

The women remained quiet as Syrova read out the verdict, while supporters in the courtroom shouted "Shame!", "We are the power here!" and "Freedom to Pussy Riot!"

The defendants were laughing among themselves as police escorted them from the courtroom. As a police van drove them away a crowd applauded and then chanted "What is the price of a conscience?"

"Their intention was to draw the public's attention and to create a wide-reaching resonance, by not just insulting workers in the cathedral, but society at large, and they inflicted wide-reaching damage and offence to worshippers," Syrova said in justifying the verdict and sentence.

Moreover, the song the women sang in the flash mob-style performance in February, Holy Mother Chase Out Putin!, was blasphemous, the judge said.

"Once (inside the cathedral defendant Nadezhda) Tolokonnikova instantly connected the microphone to the sound-reproducing equipment and switched on the recording of a song, the content of which, from the point of view of the Orthodox Church, is blasphemous and insulting to believers and for priests," Syrova said.

Prosecution lawyers had asked for a three year sentence. Syrova's decision would be appealed, defence lawyers said.

Spokesmen for the Russian Orthodox Church said they hoped authorities would show "mercy" and reduce the sentence.

"No, they will not be asking for pardon," Pussy Riot lawyer Nikolai Polozov told Interfax shortly after the verdict was announced.

Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill I made no public comment about the verdict while on a visit to Warsaw. About 100 protesters gathered in front of the Russian embassy in the city to denounce the verdict, an action repeated in multiple other world capitals, including New York, Berlin, Brussels, Kiev and Sofia.

In Moscow, around 30 Pussy Riot supporters were arrested outside the court building, including Sergei Udaltsov, a Russian opposition leader, and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, the news agency Interfax reported.

Hundreds of people had gathered outside the building, including those who opposed the punk band.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to comment to internet portal publicpost.ru on the guilty verdict.

"This is about a court decision," said Peskov.

Putin had previously said he did not like the song, but that he hoped any verdict would not be too harsh.

International reaction to the verdict was almost uniformly negative, with rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both criticizing the decision.

"It is ... meant as a warning to any others who dare to criticize President Vladimir Putin and his government," a spokeswoman for Amnesty said.

Similar concerns were echoes in the United States.

"The United States is concerned about both the verdict and the disproportionate sentences handed down by a Moscow court," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

She said the rulings have a "negative impact on freedom of expression in Russia."

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's top diplomat, urged Russia to reverse the "disproportionate" jail sentence, lambasting it as "deeply troubling" and a stain on the country's reputation.

"This case adds to the recent upsurge in politically motivated intimidation and prosecution of opposition activists in the Russian Federation, a trend that is of growing concern to the EU," Ashton said.

The French government on Friday condemned the sentencing, saying the verdict seemed "particularly disproportionate, given the minor nature of the deeds of which they are accused," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In an interview published by the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper on Friday, 22-year-old defendant Tolokonnikova said: "No matter what the verdict is, we have already won. Because we (Russians) have learned how to get angry at the authorities, and speak out politically."

Samuzevich, 30, told the paper "Our case doesn't depend on justice, but on Vladimir Putin's fear of what he might have to deal with in autumn 2012, following our imprisonment."