Pussy Riot band members freed in Russia under amnesty

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, were released from jail Monday under an amnesty allowing their early release from two-year sentences for a protest in a church against President Vladimir Putin.

Tolokonnikova shouted "Russia without Putin" after she was freed from a facility in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Alyokhina was released from a different jail hours earlier and dismissed the amnesty move. "I do not think it is a humanitarian act," she said to Russian Internet and TV channel Dozhd. "I think it is a PR stunt." 

Alyokhina, 25, and Tolokonnikova, 24, were convicted of hooliganism for performing a crude "punk prayer" in a cathedral to protest Putin's ties to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The two women had been due for release in March but qualified for the amnesty proposed by Putin in part because both are mothers of small children. A third band member had her sentence suspended earlier this year. Lawyers say amnesty will enable 30 people arrested in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling to avoid trial.

The amnesty move, along with Putin's pardon of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Thursday, appears designed to assuage international criticism of Russia's rights record ahead of February's Winter Olympics in Sochi — Putin's pet project.  

Tolokonnikova's father, Andrei Tolokonnikov, told Reuters Thursday that the planned release of the band members was clearly a public-relations move before the Olympics.

"It is an absolutely cynical game of the central authorities," he said while awaiting her release from jail in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk.

Khodorkovsky was convicted in 2003 for tax evasion and money laundering in cases that were widely criticized as retaliation for his political activities.

At a packed news conference two days after his surprise release from a Russian prison, Khodorkovsky, 50, said Sunday that he wants to pay back all those who worked so hard for his release. But he dismissed any suggestion that he might take a leading role in Russian politics, a move that would have catapulted him from being Russia's most prominent political prisoner to being Putin's main sparring partner.

"The time that is left for me is time I would like to devote to the activity of paying back my debts to the people ... and by that I mean the people who are still in prison," Khodorkovsky said, naming several business associates who remain behind bars in Russia.

However, he said he would not be "involved in the struggle for power" in Russia or fund opposition parties.

During his 10-year imprisonment, Khodorkovsky transformed his image in the eyes of many from that of a ruthless oligarch into a prominent voice of dissent in Russia. He bolstered that aura with thoughtful editorials — written by hand, since he was allowed no access to computers in prison.

Wire services