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THE TWO MEMBERS of Russian punk group Pussy Riot who were released from prison colonies late last year said they had both been arrested today in downtown Sochi during the Olympic Games.
This is the first time that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina have been detained by police after their release in December on amnesty from their prison sentences for performing a song opposing President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow church.
“We have been arrested… and are accused of robbery,” Tolokonnikova wrote on her Twitter account.
“When we were arrested, we were not performing any kind of action, we were just walking around Sochi,” she added.
Her bandmate Maria Alyokhina confirmed she had also been arrested. They were arrested in central Sochi, some 30 kilometres north of the main Olympic venues.
Tolokonnikova said that she and Alyokhina had already been in Sochi for over a day with the aim of performing a new song titled “Putin will teach you how to love the motherland”.
She said that before their arrest they had already managed to stage “some Olympic performances” without giving further details.
They had both previously denounced the project spearheaded by Putin to host the Games and called for a boycott of the Olympics.
The radical art group Voina (War), which is run by Tolokonnikova’s husband Pyotr Verzilov said that seven other people had been arrested as well as the Pussy Riot girls.
According to Tolokonnikova, another unnamed third member of Pussy Riot was also arrested.
They were being taken in a police van to the police station in the Adler district which is closer to the Olympic venues.
The women were convicted of hooliganism in 2012 and sentenced to two years in prison colonies after staging their so-called “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow but released early in December under a Kremlin-backed amnesty.
The stunt came just ahead of Putin’s re-election to the Kremlin in March 2012 and was aimed at denouncing the Orthodox Church’s support of the Russian strongman during the campaign.
Their jailing turned them from little-known feminist punks who staged a handful of guerrilla performances in Moscow to the stars of a global cause celebre symbolising the repression of civil dissent under Putin.
They received support from luminaries ranging from Madonna to Yoko Ono to Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
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And it’s long overdue for Cork to have a seat at the United Nations. And a permanent seat on the security council to be held by Roy Keane in perpetuity.
@Seán: we have the last spot to limerick. Senator Blindboy wouldn’t approve
US sticking it’s nose where is doesn’t belong agian. What a surprise
@Mark Duffy: you could indeed. But what business is of the US what China decides to do? Didn’t see China interfere with the US invasion of the middle East. Seems the US has decided it’s one rule for them and another for everyone else.
@Roy Dowling: look what the US tried and failed to do with Cuba LOL if it wasn’t for the bleededn communist Russians they would of had there where way, US backed forces were slaughtered during ‘bay of the pigs’ same way the US backed Chinese nationals fled to form modern day Taiwan after the Civil war
@Mark Duffy: has the US ever actually helped a nation in the name of democracy? And not because it has expansive natural resources ?name one?
@Mark Duffy: Tawain isn’t a sovereign nation weather you want to admit it or not. Just because they want to be doesn’t make it so. The US has no business getting involved in what is essentially an internal matter for the Chinese.
@Roy Dowling: China no longer has to lower itself to the US, they are on par with them if anything and could go head to head in war with them, it wasn’t possible 2 decades ago, now it is
@Damon16: with the state of the health service here in Ireland i won’t be here in 20yrs time
@Alan Peters: Japan and Germany. That’s 2.
@Jonathan Baum: they helped Japan after detonating an atomic bomb because they seen it as a base in their paranoia against communism
@Jonathan Baum: why doesnt the US have a history of helping out struggling African nations? Bar taking slaves, because the European colonies stripped them of their natural resources and its not worth their their time, the middle east is a different story they can get something out of there
@Mark Duffy: a nations right to self determination? So you agree Israel is a sovereign country? Can Scotland just leave the UK tomorrow because its decides it’s now independent.? Taiwan is part of China that’s just a fact. A losing side of a civil war who retreated to Taiwan can’t just decide its now independent.
@Mark Duffy: Republic of Ireland isn’t part of the Uk.
@Mark Duffy: doesn’t matter if they decided it now or 40 years ago. You can’t just claim to be independent. Just like Scotland can’t it needs to hold a vote and the UK has to agree to let them have a vote otherwise there not legally independent.
@Donal McCarthy: Didn’t say they to submit to Chinese rule because of the Americans. I Said the Americans have no right to interfere big difference. You say Taiwan has a right to self determination. Does Israel not have the same right to self determination?
@Roy Dowling: well spotted ;)
@Alan Peters: the Marshall plan rebuilt the whole of western Europe after the war.
Its all geopolitics… Divide and conquer. The UK split Ireland in 2. They did the same with India and Pakistan. If you look at the middle east they did the very same with Syria, Iraq and Turkey with the Kurdish people. The west was also involved in splitting North Korea and South Korea, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Taiwan is something similar, its a massive security risk for China. The UK and the US are sending war ships into Taiwan stirring tensions and its not by accident.
Can you imagine the outrage if Ireland became best friends with China and Russia and we invited ships with lots of weapons to dock in Dublin and Wexford and they pointed their shiny new weapons at London. I don’t think the UK would be too happy.
@Jonathan Baum: By the ‘world’ you mean the USA and the rump colonial powers of western Europe. The ‘world’ is happy to trade with China.
Biggest mistake was Nixon ever establishing diplomatic relations with China. One they did it, other followed suit . Lithuania has guts.
Taiwan is China. Falklands is Argentina.
have your say