Breaking: ‘We Were Beaten’ By Russian Police Says Pussy Riot Member Upon Release (Video)
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One of the members of the feminist Russian punk rock protest group Pussy Riot says they were beaten by police in Russia in jail today after refusing to speak without a lawyer present. At least two of the activists were arrested this morning after being followed for days by Russian national police in Sochi.
The two, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, say they were walking down the street near the area of the 2014 Winter Olympics when they were arrested and charged with theft from a hotel. They flatly deny the charges. Reportedly, between nine and forty others were arrested around the same time, including members of the media, presumably on the same charges.
“Of course there has been no theft,” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova told the New York Times from jail.
In this quick video published by NBC News, one of the members, just released from jail, tells reporters, “we were beating because we didn’t want to tell anything without our lawyer.”
It seems not uncommon for political arrestees in Russia to be beaten. Earlier this month, LGBT activists arrested for singing the national anthem while holding a rainbow flag in Moscow’s Red Square also accused police of beating them. The activists said police told them “that we have to ‘suck their cocks’ and that we have to be burned.”
Pussy Riot was arrested and jailed in 2012 for “hooliganism,” after staging a political act in a church. Their arrest led to a new law criminalizing blasphemy.
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http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/nbcNewsOffsite?guid=f_pussy_riot_release_140218
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