Pussy Riot is free. After serving almost the entirety of their two-year sentence at remote prison camps, the two jailed members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, have been let go under a new amnesty law in Russia. Their sentence was meant to run through February.In an interview with The New York Times, Alyokhina said, "I think this is an attempt to improve the image of the current government, a little, before the Sochi Olympics—particularly for the Western Europeans. But I don’t consider this humane or merciful. This is a lie. We didn’t ask for any pardon. I would have sat here until the end of my sentence because I don’t need mercy from Putin."
See photos of the women after their release over on the website of the Voice Project, an organization that has worked alongside their families during the women's imprisonment.
Along with Pussy Riot's Yekaterina Samutsevich, who was freed last year, the women were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" in 2012 after a guerilla-style performance at Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Their anti-Putin "punk prayer" lasted less than one minute. From the beginning of the case, Amnesty International has called Pussy Riot "prisoners of conscience."
Earlier this year, there was a massive call for Pussy Riot's release by several names in music, including Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Bruce Springsteen, the Knife, Paul McCartney, Björk, Animal Collective, Yoko Ono, Portishead, PJ Harvey, Adele, Patti Smith, and more.
Watch Pussy Riot's performance of their "punk prayer": Reported by Pitchfork 3 hours ago.