(New York, NY) – Pussy Riot members Maria “Masha” Alekhina and Lucy Shteyn will appear in court this week on charges related to their peaceful activism. PEN America and the European Film Academy call for their immediate and unconditional release. Alekhina and Shteyn, founding members of the Russian feminist artists collective Pussy Riot, are charged with “inciting violations of sanitary regulations,” after sharing posts on Instagram encouraging people to join protests decrying the jailing of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. Both Alekhina and Shteyn have spent the past two months under house arrest and face up to two years imprisonment.
“Masha Alekhina and Lucy Shteyn’s prosecution under the guise of public health is an egregious effort by Vladimir Putin’s government to weaponize COVID-19 as an excuse to punish its detractors and crack down on the growing opposition movement,” said Polina Sadovskaya, Eurasia program director at PEN America. “The political motivation for these charges is as blatant as it is offensive, revealing the absurd and repressive lengths to which Russian authorities will go to silence their critics.”
“As protests have swept through Russia in the wake of Alexei Navalny’s jailing, artists, writers, and intellectuals like Alekhina and Shteyn have felt the brunt of police crackdowns,” said Julie Trebault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) at PEN America. “While Pussy Riot’s members are no strangers to persecution, the continued criminalization of their speech and activism poses dire threats to artistic freedom and sends an alarming signal to artists across the country: Speak out, even peacefully online, and potentially face years in prison. Alekhina and Shteyn must be freed unconditionally at their hearing this week.”
“Pussy Riot has been a major beacon of hope for democracy in Russia,” said Mike Downey, chairman of the European Film Academy. “The courage of Masha Alekhina and Lucy Shteyn to selflessly stand up for human rights in Putin’s Russia, defending dissents like Oleg Sentsov and Alexei Navalny, has been nothing short of heroic. On behalf of the European Film Academy, its President Agnieszka Holland, Matthijs Wouter Knol, its director, and members like Pedro Almodovar, Stephen Daldry. and Pawel Pawlikowski, we stand in solidarity with Pussy Riot and call on the Russian government to release them immediately.”
Alekhina, Shteyn, and fellow Pussy Riot member Viktoria Naraxsa were recently arrested under separate charges for their participation in a demonstration on January 23. Alekhina and Shteyn were detained for 15 days and subsequently placed on house arrest for their social media posts. For the past two months, they have reportedly been unable to leave their own apartments, see other people, use the internet, go on walks, or visit doctors.
Alekhina has previously faced threats from Russian authorities for her work with Pussy Riot, most notably in 2012 when she and two other members were sentenced to two years in prison before being released several months early following an international outcry. Since then, she has remained an outspoken activist and critic of the Kremlin, and recently spoke about her persecution in ARC’s new Safety Guide for Artists. In response to the new charges she and Shteyn face, fellow Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova penned an open letter calling for their freedom, which was signed by film and arts luminaries including Spike Jonze, Whoopi Goldberg, and Marina Abramovic.
PEN America follows the developments in Russia concerning freedom of expression and artistic freedoms through it’s Eurasia program and leads the Artists at Risk Connection, a program dedicated to assisting imperiled artists and fortifying the field of organizations that support them. If you or someone you know is an artist at risk, contact ARC.