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19 Feb 2014

Pussy Riot attacked by whip-wielding Cossacks

Members of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot are beaten with whips by Russian security forces after trying to perform an anti-Putin protest song at the Winter Olympics.

The Cossack militia pulled out what looked like horse whips and struck out at the six protesters as they attempted to stage a performance.

The five women and one man pulled on their signature balaclava masks in front of a Sochi sign. But were quickly interrupted by the government security personnels, who are helping patrol Sochi during the Winter Olympics.

The attack was filmed by a number of onlookers and Maria Alyokhina, who served a two-year prison sentence for staging an anti-Putin protest in a church, tweeted pictures of the injuries sustained by some of the protesters.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was also in prison with Ms Alyokhina, was thrown to the ground and beaten with a whip. She tweeted: “Under the banner Sochi 2014, to the sound of “Putin will teach us to love the homeland”, Cossacks attacked Pussy Riot, beat us with whips and sprayed a lot of pepper gas at us.”

David Khakim, an activist who was briefly detained over a one-man protest in Sochi this week, said he had witnessed the attack.

“The Cossacks sprayed gas in my eyes. They started beating us with whips after which they started choking us in front of a police officer,” he wrote on Twitter.

Both Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova were detained on suspicion of theft in Sochi on Tuesday but were later released, less than two months after their release from prison under an amnesty.

They had been serving two-year jail terms for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing a protest song against Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral in February 2012.

Cossack security forces are being used to beef up the policing of the Olympic Games. The force is outside of the police and the military, and were historically used to patrol the Russian borderlands, but they are now used mainly to assist police with making arrests.