Pussy Riot member uses freedom to resume protests against Putin
Yekaterina Samutsevich, the Pussy Riot member freed by a Moscow court this week, has promised to continue taking part in the band's anti-Putin protests, saying she would be "more careful and more clever" to avoid another arrest. On Friday, in her first newspaper interview, Samutsevich said her parting words to the two band members who remain in jail were that she would continue their struggle against the president. But she expects state pressure on her to grow despite her new-found freedom.
"They didn't overturn the verdict, they didn't say I'm not guilty – they gave me a suspended sentence. If I do the slightest thing [wrong], even an administrative violation, they can send me back to jail," she told the Guardian. The three women were sentenced to two years in a prison colony on charges of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" following their anti-Putin "punk prayer" in a Moscow cathedral. Samutsevich wasunexpectedly freed by an appeals court on Wednesday after successfully arguing that she didn't fully take part in the performance.
"I didn't expect it," Samutsevich said, sitting in a central Moscow cafe wearing the same jeans and white sweater she wore to the appeal hearing. At her feet lay a canvas sack and large plastic bag filled with clothes, letters and books. She had just collected her belongings from the southern Moscow detention centre that still holds her bandmates, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. Samutsevich described how the three friends had prepared themselves for prison during the appeal hearing. "In court, we were talking about how we would go to the prison colony, what it would be like. When they took us back into the courtroom, we said: that was a very short deliberation, they probably won't change the verdict." (A panel of three judges deliberated for just 40 minutes before announcing Samutsevich's release.)
She struggled to explain the judges' thinking. "Maybe the authorities wanted to imitate the independence of the court system," she said. "But it is just that – an imitation."The case against Pussy Riot was one of most high-profile political trials in Russia since Putin first came to power 12 years ago. The president has condemned their performance and their name, while Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, said he was "nauseated" by the group's action.
Samutsevich said Putin stood behind the decision to prosecute the band. "Such decisions don't happen without the president," she said. "It was either motivated by personal hate or it was a political step." ..
