Pussy Riot members seek asylum in Sweden

Two members of feminist-punk collective Pussy Riot are seeking asylum in Sweden.

Lusine Djanyan and Alexei Knedlyakovsky told Swedish broadcaster SVT that they faced persecution if they continued to live in Russia.

The couple, who arrived in Sweden with their son in March 2017, are now living in a home for asylum seekers while they wait for their application to be processed by the Swedish Migration Service.

Pussy Riot shot to international fame in 2012 when several members held a protest in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Three members were arrested, with two of them later jailed for two years in prison after being found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”.

Djanyan and Knedlyakovsky did not take part in the cathedral protest, but made artwork protesting the incarceration of fellow Pussy Riot member, Nadya Tolokonnikova. Knedlyakovsky was also jailed for 15 days in 2016 after attaching a wooden crucifix to a statue dedicated of the first chief of the Soviet secret police, Felix Dzerzhinsky.