MOSCOW/SARANSK, July 26 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian court on Friday rejected Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s appeal for parole.
Tolokonnikova, 23, who is currently serving a two-year prison sentence for her part in a protest art performance in a Moscow cathedral, had appealed against a lower court’s April decision to deny her parole.
Footage from the courtroom posted on the website Grani.ru showed Tolokonnikova smiling and waving to people present in court, who included her husband and father. The defendant’s cage in which she was kept for the duration of the proceedings was flanked by officers wearing bulletproof vests.
The Supreme Court in the Russian republic of Mordovia upheld the decision not to grant her parole.
Tolokonnikova, who has a young child, on Friday stressed that she is not guilty and will continue to appeal against her sentence, RAPSI legal news service reported.
"I will appeal my sentence to the last, up to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. I do not admit any guilt and will not do so. I do not consider that to be a bad thing, as the [prison] colony does, but a good thing, for I have principles upon which I will stand," Tolokonnikova said during the hearing.
The lower court had cited the prisoner’s refusal to admit her guilt as a reason for turning down her parole appeal.
Tolokonnikova was one of five young women who staged a “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in February 2012. Having donned brightly colored balaclavas, the women danced on the altar for about 40 seconds before they were apprehended by the church’s security guards.
An edited video of their performance was then posted on the Internet, with the feminist punk protest group’s song, “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” as its soundtrack, causing a public outcry.
In August 2012, a Moscow district court found Tolokonnikova and two other women – Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and sentenced them to two years in a prison colony.
In October 2012, the Moscow City Court suspended Samutsevich's sentence and released her based on her new attorneys' argument that she was seized by security guards before reaching the altar.
The sentences of Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were not changed. On July 24, a court in Perm upheld a decision to reject Alyokhina's appeal for parole.
The two women, who have been in custody since March 2012, are due to be released next March.
