A Moscow district court has ruled that the exiled punk protest group Pussy Riot is an extremist organisation, state news agency TASS reported.
The decision, announced on Monday, followed a submission from the Prosecutor General’s Office. The band’s lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, told TASS the group will appeal. The hearing was held behind closed doors at the prosecutor’s request, according to the report.
AFP said the court upheld prosecution demands to recognise Pussy Riot as extremist and to ban its activities across the Russian Federation.
An official Pussy Riot social account responded defiantly, saying members living abroad are ‘freer than those who try to silence us.’ The statement directly criticised President Vladimir Putin, calling him ‘an aging sociopath spreading his venom around the world like cancer.’ It added: ‘In today’s Russia, telling the truth is extremism. So be it — we’re proud extremists, then.’
Legal experts and the band warn the designation will make it easier for authorities to pursue supporters and associates inside Russia. The group said the court order is aimed at erasing its existence from public life, and that owning a balaclava, storing their music, or liking their posts could expose people to criminal penalties.
TASS said the prosecution based the case on several past Pussy Riot protests, including a February 2012 action at Christ the Saviour Cathedral and a performance at the 2018 World Cup Final in Moscow.
Several members have previously faced criminal sentences over the 2012 cathedral protest, when they performed a ‘punk prayer’ titled ‘Mother of God, Cast Putin Out!’ Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were jailed for two years on hooliganism charges and later released under a 2013 amnesty that spared roughly 26,000 people.
In September, a Russian court sentenced five people linked to Pussy Riot — Maria Alyokhina, Taso Pletner, Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Alina Petrova — after finding them guilty of spreading what the court called ‘false information’ about the Russian military, Mediazona reported. The defendants said the charges were politically motivated.
Mediazona, the outlet founded by Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova, said it continues to maintain a verified list of Russian military deaths in the conflict in Ukraine, stating that it has confirmed 153,000 names, each supported by evidence and documentation.