ONE of two freed members of punk protest band Pussy Riot has said their release was aimed solely at improving Russia's image before it hosts the Winter Olympic Games and was not a humanitarian gesture.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, and Maria Alyokhina, 25, walked free under a Kremlin amnesty on Monday after serving more than 21 months of a two-year prison term for performing a "punk prayer" protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main Russian Orthodox cathedral.
Tolokonnikova said the Winter Olympics, due to be held in February in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, were Mr Putin's pet project and anybody attending them would be supporting him.
Last week, Mr Putin also pardoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, viewed by Kremlin foes as a political prisoner, after he spent more than 10 years in jail.
But Tolokonnikova told a news conference yesterday: "The thaw has nothing to do with humanism. The authorities only did this under pressure from both Russian and Western society. There could be more repression after the Olympics."
Alyokhina said the Russian Orthodox Church had played a role in the jailing of three band members. The women said they would stay in Russia to campaign for better prison conditions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article