A Russian court on Monday adjourned an appeal hearing for three members of the Pussy Riot punk band against their conviction for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a church after one of the trio sacked her lawyers.
About a hundred people – Pussy Riot supporters in colourful T-shirts as well as mainly elderly Russian Orthodox Christians – filled corridors of the Moscow court and others stood outside.
Pussy Riot supporters released three large balloons – a red, blue and a yellow one, all with captions reading “Pussy Riot!” – into the sky, while one Orthodox campaigner held up a banner declaring: “Shame to lawyers, prison for blasphemers”.
One member of the band, Yekaterina Samutsevich, sitting in a glass and metal courtroom cage alongside her two band mates, told the Moscow court she disagreed with her lawyers’ handling of the case and the hearing was put off until October 10.
“My position on the criminal case does not match their [the lawyers’] position,” Tolokonnikova told the small courtroom, packed with supporters, family members and reporters. She gave no details.
Western governments have portrayed the three women’s two-year sentences as excessive, and opposition groups see it as part of a crackdown on dissent by Putin, but many Russians regard the protest band as irreverent self-publicists.