This morning, Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina was denied early release from prison, after appealing to be let off on parole. She was transferred to a prison closer to Moscow this morning, where she will apparently have to complete the remaining quarter of her 2-year sentence for committing heresy hooliganism several seconds of dancing in a church to a recording of an anti-Putin punk protest song.
“Ms Alyokhina began the hearing by challenging the impartiality of the panel of three judges and asking for them to step down,” the Independent reports. However, in a prime example of an impossibly paradoxical justice system, “the judges retreated to consider the accusation, but deemed themselves unbiased and refused her request.”
This comes as upsetting, though not entirely shocking news following her 11-day hunger strike in protest of being physically banned from her own parole hearing on May 23. It’s hard to imagine that Pussy Riot’s latest Putin-and-Oil-Industry-bashing single “Like a Red Prison” warmed the court up to Alekhina, either.
(Photo: Baltimore Sun)
