Artists rally for Pussy Riot as World Cup protesters face more jail time

marina abramovic: free pussy riot!

4 our members are still serving 2 weeks of arrest after the world cup action pic.twitter.com/15DiHYtXNf

— ���������� �������� (@pussyrrriot) July 26, 2018

Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović is among a new wave of artists calling for the release of Russian protest group Pussy Riot.

Four members of the feminist collective were arrested and jailed for 15 days after staging a pitch invasion protesting against Kremlin policies at the World Cup final in Moscow last month.

Olga Kuracheva, Veronica Nikulshina, Olga Pakhtusova and Peta Verzilov were officially released on Monday evening, but were arrested again by waiting officers before they could walk to freedom.

Officials claim that their World Cup protest also broke Russian laws on “holding a public event without prior written notice”, an offence which carries a maximum 10-day jail time.

“The law about public events only regulates events like meetings, rallies, marches, demonstrations and pickets,” Pussy Riot wrote on their Facebook page. “Performing an artistic action is clearly beyond the scope of this law.”

Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei and musician Charli XCX have already expressed their support for the group’s World Cup protest online, while Abramović filmed a video of herself in Pussy Riot’s iconic balaclava, raising a fist in solidarity. “I support a free Pussy Riot,” she said.

The group’s poetry-inspired World Cup protest took aim at several key Kremlin policies, including the arrest of Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov. They described their demands as follows: “Let all political prisoners free; not imprison for ‘likes’; stop illegal arrests on rallies; allow political competition in the country; and not fabricate criminal accusations and not keep people in jails for no reason.”