BBC: Maria Alyokhina, a member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, has been freed early from prison under an amnesty. She told a Russian TV channel the amnesty was a “PR stunt” and she would rather have remained in prison. The release of fellow band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is also expected later on Monday. The women were jailed in August 2012 for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” after performing a protest song in Moscow’s main cathedral. Their conviction was criticised by rights groups, anti-Putin activists and foreign governments. As soon as Maria Alyokhina stepped through the prison gates she described the amnesty law under which she was released as a “profanation”, since it applied only to a minority of convicts. Most pundits see the amnesty as President Putin’s attempt to soften his image in the West and improve his human rights record ahead of the Sochi Olympics in February 2014. Two days after the amnesty came into force Putin pardoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and his personal foe, in a move that again was widely seen as an attempt to appease the West.[…] Tolokonnikova’s husband told the BBC that “the only thing they have acquired over their two years in prison is their confidence to continue fighting Putin’s regime even harder”. MORE
RELATED: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova on Monday became the second Pussy Riot band member to be released under a massive amnesty. She left her prison in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, hours after her bandmate Maria Alyokhina was released in Nizhny Novgorod. MORE
BUZZFEED: Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova said in an interview hours after her release from prison on Monday that Vladimir Putin’s wide-reaching amnesty did not signal a change for the Russian president. “There is no new Putin,” Tolokonnikova told BuzzFeed. “This is a small step back, but a small one. There are still plenty of people in the jails.” She called the amnesty, which also saw the release of Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a “calculated move.” Speaking from the kitchen of her grandmother’s apartment in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Tolokonnikova said she is eager to return to human rights activism.“I’ve probably been sitting still too much,” she said, after nearly two years in prison. She said she would remain in Krasnoyarsk for some time before making further plans, and would consult with her fellow Pussy Riot members, including Alyokhina and Samutsevich, before moving forward. Tolokonnikova’s husband, Petya Verzilov, said the two were busy eating Russian cheese pancakes. “We’re all very happy and fine.” MORE