Pussy Riot members vow to keep fighting Putin

Two members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot who spent nearly two years in prison for their irreverent protest in Moscow's main cathedral said Friday they still want to topple President Vladimir Putin.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were among three members of the band arrested after its brief, unauthorized performance in Christ The Savior Cathedral in March 2012, calling on the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against Putin who was on the verge of being elected to a third term in office.

Three women in the band were convicted of hooliganism. Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were released this week under an amnesty measure seen by many as a ploy by Putin to stem criticism ahead of the Winter Olympics scheduled to take place next year.

The third jailed member of Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on a suspended sentence last year.

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina flew into Moscow Friday morning and held a two-hour news conference in the afternoon. Both insisted that their release did not change their attitude to the president and the system of government he has built.

"As for Vladimir Putin, we still feel the same about him," Tolokonnikova said.  "We still want to do what we said in our last performance for which we spent two years in prison: drive him away."

Tolokonnikova said "the scariest thing about Putin's Russia is the impossibility to speak and be heard," and suggested that former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was pardoned earlier this month after spending 10 years in prison, would make a better president.

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina said they wanted to start an organization to help prisoners in Russia.

Tolokonnikova said Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny will help raise funds for the organization.

In September, Tolokonnikova published a long letter from her penal colony detailing harsh conditions for inmates that eventually led to her health deteriorating.   

Both women described Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who was expelled from the country in 1976 and has been living in the United Kingdom since then, as their role-model. Tolokonnikova hailed him as a "human rights champion undeterred by fear."

The band members rejected suggestions of playing shows in Russia or abroad, saying activism is more important to them.

"We're not going to give shows," Alyokhina said. "We're just not interested."

The two women lambasted the law adopted this year that bans so-called propaganda supporting non-traditional sexual orientations from being made available to minors.

Tolokonnikova reiterated her call to world leaders to boycott the Winter Olympics which will be held in Sochi in February, saying that visiting the Games will be a "political decision to support what Vladimir Putin is doing."

Al Jazeera and wire services