Russia's Supreme Court orders review of Pussy Riot case

Russia's Supreme Court has ordered a review of the case against two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band saying that a lower court did not fully prove their guilt.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were found guilty of hooliganism motived by religious hatred in August 2012, following an impromptu protest in Moscow's main cathedral, and sentenced to two years in prison each. Samutsevich was released several months later on suspended sentence.

With just three months remaining of their sentence, the Supreme Court said in a ruling published Thursday that the lower courts overlooked the women's circumstances that would have allowed for a more lenient sentences.

The court said that the "hatred" was never proven while their status as young mothers of underage children was ignored. "The court did not provide any proof that Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were motivated by hatred toward any social group in its verdict," the Supreme Court said in a decision posted on its official website.

Tolokonikova was placed in solitary confinement in September after she went on hunger strike to protest against the harsh conditions of their imprisonment. 

An amnesty decree likely to be voted on by the Duma — the Russian parliament — this month could still see legal proceedings against Pussy Riot dropped. 

A draft of the decree, submitted by President Vladimir Putin and posted on the Kremlin’s website Monday, could affect tens of thousands of activists and political prisoners in the country.

Russia’s Izvestia news outlet reported that government sources have suggested that it might lead to the freeing of members of Pussy Riot.

It could also apply to the so-called Arctic 30. In a case that has, similarly to that of Pussy Riot, attracted widespread international attention, authorities reportedly told a group of Greenpeace activists and journalists arrested in September after a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic that they cannot leave the country. 

The environmental group said the decision was in defiance of a ruling of an international court, and repeated its demand that the 28 activists and two journalists, including six Britons, should be allowed home. 

They have all been granted bail by courts in St. Petersburg but have remained in Russia while efforts are made to give them permission to leave. 

Greenpeace said Friday that Russia's Investigative Committee has written to one of the 30 – Anne Mie Jensen from Denmark – indicating that they are not free to leave the country. 

Lawyers have also been seeking an assurance that the investigative committee would give at least one month's notice when it wanted to interview the 30; otherwise they could break their bail conditions if they returned home. 

In its letter to Jensen, the committee said it would not provide the requested notice. 

Peter Willcox, the American-born captain of the Greenpeace vessel, the Arctic Sunrise, said: "I am ready to go home to my family. We were seized in international waters and brought to Russia against our will, then charged with a crime we didn't commit and kept in jail for two months.”

A ruling in November by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, made up of 21 eminent judges, ordered Russia to allow the Arctic 30 to leave the country immediately and to release the Arctic Sunrise, as soon as a bond of 3.6 million euros in the form of a bank guarantee was paid. 

Greenpeace International legal counsel Daniel Simons said: "The Russian Federation is now in clear breach of a binding order of an international tribunal. As President Vladimir Putin stated in his famous open letter to the American people on Syria, 'The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.'

Simons continued, "In his state of the nation speech in Moscow yesterday, (Putin) added 'We try not to lecture anyone but promote international law.' It's time for the authorities to act in that spirit and allow the Arctic 30 to go home to their families immediately." 

Al Jazeera and wire services