Pussy Riot found guilty of anti-religious ‘hooliganism’ for church protest
A Russian judge found three women from the punk band Pussy Riot guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred on Friday for staging an anti-Kremlin protest on the altar of Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox church.
Judge Marina Syrova did not immediately issue a sentence but state prosecutors want there-year jail terms for the three women who stormed the altar of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February and performed a “punk prayer” asking the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin.
The defendants “committed an act of hooliganism … based on motives of religious hatred and enmity,” the judge told the Moscow court as the defendants sat in a courtroom cage. (Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)
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