Moscow (dpa) - Former Soviet leader and Nobel prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev on Monday criticized the sentences given to the punk rock band Pussy Riot, calling the two-year imprisonment terms handed down to the performers "disproportionate".
"I‘m surprised and shocked that this event, which ought to have been dealt with tactfully, perhaps by serious conversation, has plunged the entire country into a a completely disproportionate situation," Gorbachev said, in comments published on the site of the Gorbachev Foundation.
"I want to remind you that the two of them (the jailed band members) have children. Yes, they spoke out against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin ... but their goal was to engage civil society."
Defendants Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Ekaterina Samuzevich intentionally broke the law and committed acts of religious hatred when they performed a song in February criticizing relations between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, a Moscow court ruled in late August.
An appeal to the ruling will be heard in Moscow on October 1, the Interfax news agency reported. dpa sbk mat Author: Stefan Korshak
"I want to remind you that the two of them (the jailed band members) have children. Yes, they spoke out against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin ... but their goal was to engage civil society."
Defendants Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Ekaterina Samuzevich intentionally broke the law and committed acts of religious hatred when they performed a song in February criticizing relations between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, a Moscow court ruled in late August.
An appeal to the ruling will be heard in Moscow on October 1, the Interfax news agency reported. dpa sbk mat Author: Stefan Korshak