Russia extends Pussy Riot detentions

REUTERS

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of punk band Pussy Riot, is being escorted during a court hearing in Moscow April 19, 2012. Russian police detained at least 13 people who demonstrated outside a courthouse on Thursday against the arrest of three members of a women's punk rock group that performed a protest song in Moscow's main cathedral, witnesses said. REUTERS/Maxim Shemeto

Moscow -

A Russian court Wednesday extended by a month the detention of female members of the Pussy Riot punk rock group amid protests as they await trial for singing an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a cathedral.

Police also detained several people outside Moscow's Tagansky district court as supporters sang couplets of their song outside the courtroom and a pro-Kremlin youth group held placards saying “Heretics, know the law!”.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevich, initially arrested in February, had their pre-trial detention extended until July 24, adding a month to a previous extension, the RAPSI legal news agency reported.

The court was later set to give a ruling on whether to extend the arrest of a third suspect, Maria Alekhina.

The young women, two of whom have children, are charged with hooliganism by an organised group, an offence with a maximum jail term of seven years. It is an exceptionally harsh punishment for a political protest.

The radical group has sung raucous anthems against Putin's government in public places including Red Square. Its members wear brightly coloured balaclavas to conceal their faces and use nicknames.

In February, they climbed into an area reserved for priests in the central Church of Christ the Saviour and began singing a song criticising the Russian Orthodox Church's close ties to the Kremlin, before being dragged away by guards.

The offence prompted Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to hold an open-air prayer service with thousands of worshippers gathering outside the building as he said they had desecrated holy relics kept there. - Sapa-AFP