Pussy Riot members released from Russian jail

Alyokhina, 25, was jailed alongside fellow band members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, in August 2012 after they were convicted of hooliganism for performing a crude “punk prayer” in a cathedral against President Putin’s ties to the Russian Orthodox church.

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had been due for release in March, but qualified for an amnesty proposed by President Putin, in part because both are mothers of small children. Samutsevich had her sentence suspended earlier this year, and was released on appeal in October 2012.

After her release from a prison in Siberia, Tolokonnikova shouted: “Russia without Putin.”

The amnesty law signed by the Russian parliament covers at least 20,000 prisoners, including youngsters, invalids and pregnant women. The two women were included as mothers.

Lawyers say the amnesty will also enable 30 people arrested in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling to avoid trial, although President Putin has said the amnesty, passed to mark the 20th anniversary of Russia’s post-Soviet constitution, was not drafted with the Greenpeace activists or Pussy Riot in mind.

‘PR stunt’

However Alyokhina dismissed the amnesty as a PR stunt ahead of Russia’s hosting of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February.

After her release, she said: “I do not think it is a humanitarian act. I think it is a PR stunt. In this situation, I was just a body being moved in space, nothing depended on me. If I had a choice to refuse [the amnesty], I would have, without a doubt.”

Tolokonnikova’s father Andrei echoed her comments, saying on Thursday that the planned release of the band members was clearly a public-relations move ahead of 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.

On Friday, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon who was once Russia’s richest man, was also pardoned and freed after more than 10 years in prison for fraud and tax evasion.

He has always insisted his conviction was politically motivated because of his financial support for opposition parties.