Pussy Riot supporters held

MOSCOW – Russian police hauled away 15 supporters of all-women punk band Pussy Riot yesterday for protesting against the detention of three of its members who burst into a cathedral and sang a protest song against President Vladimir Putin.

The 15 men and women were dragged off for violating public order when a crowd of about 300 whistled and chanted ‘Freedom’ outside a Moscow court before a hearing at which the band members’ pre-trial detention was widely expected to be extended.’They are violating our constitutional rights,’ a woman in her late 40s shouted before being dragged in to a police van.There were no scuffles, but the crowd held banners demanding the release of the three women over an impromptu and unsanctioned performance in short dresses and colourful masks at the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.Their rendition of a punk prayer called ‘Holy Mother, throw Putin out!’ was a protest against the close relationship between the Orthodox Church and Putin, whom it backed in the presidential election he won in March.The Church’s support for Putin, whose rule has been described by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church as a ‘miracle of God’, has angered many members of the anti-Putin protest movement that has sprung up in the past seven months.Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich could face up to seven years in jail for hooliganism over an act that offended some Russian Orthodox believers.Defence lawyers for the jailed women see the case as political and said they had filed an appeal against their detention to the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday.- Nampa-Reuters

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