Two members of the punk band Pussy Riot charged with hooliganism after singing an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a Russian church went on hunger strike on Wednesday after what one said was an “unlawful” court ruling.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich swore off food after a Moscow court ruled Wednesday that they and their defence team had only five more days to study the case materials in a move lawyers said was a move to hasten their trial. “I announce a hunger strike because it is unlawful,” Tolokonnikova, wearing a T-shirt with the famous slogan of the Spanish Civil War, “No pasaran!” (“They shall not pass”), emblazoned across it. “Until July 9th is not enough (time) for me. I will appeal. I think it is absolutely unlawful,” she said in the Tagansky district court.
“I announce a hunger strike,” Samutsevich also said after the court delivered a separate ruling on her. In a repeat of the chaotic scenes that have marked most of the legal process against the three-member band, police detained around a dozen Pussy Riot supporters who gathered outside the court in central Moscow. Those detained included three activists who locked themselves in a metal cage outside the courtroom before police cut the locks and whisked them away, an AFP correspondent said. Tolokonnikova, Samutsevich and the group’s third member Maria Alekhina were arrested after their band barged into Russia’s main cathedral, Church of Christ the Saviour in February and have been detained since March.