Trial of three band members over protest song highlighting church ties to Kremlin is politically motivated, say supporters
Three members of the band Pussy Riot, who staged a punk-rock protest against Vladimir Putin on the altar of Russia's main cathedral, go on trial on Monday in a case seen as a test of the president's tolerance of dissent.
The trial, say observers, will reveal how much power the resurgent Russian Orthodox church and its head, Patriarch Kirill, wields. He has called the "punk prayer" blasphemy, casting it as part of a sinister anti-clerical campaign.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were arrested in March after taking to the altar of Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral and singing a song calling on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out".
The three women, two of whom have young children, have been in custody since.
Governments and human rights groups, as well as bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, have expressed concern about the trial, reflecting doubts that Putin – who is serving his third presidential term – will become more tolerant of dissenting voices.
"The court's decision will depend not on the law but on what the Kremlin wants," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident and veteran human rights activist who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group.
The trial takes place in the same Moscow court that found the jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of stealing his own oil.
The trial in 2010 looked like a crude Kremlin attempt to keep a man it saw as a political threat behind bars, according to western politicians.
Charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility, the women face up to seven years in prison if convicted – a punishment rights groups say would be grossly disproportionate no matter what the law says.
Pussy Riot, who say they were inspired by 90s-era US punk bands Bikini Kill and Riot Grrl, burst on to the scene last winter with angry lyrics that went viral.
The band describe themselves as the avant garde of a disenchanted generation that is looking for creative ways to show its dissatisfaction with Putin's 12-year dominance of the political landscape.
The group have no lead singer, and, in order that anyone may join, its members don multicoloured balaclavas, which have become their trademark. They numbered five when they formed in November but later expanded to 10, though there have been no performances in Russia since their bandmates' arrest.
The unsanctioned performance that prompted the arrest offended many Russian Orthodox Christians, whose church has had a major revival since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
But while two-thirds of the county's 142 million people are considered Russian Orthodox, the number of practising churchgoers is far smaller.
Patriarch Kirill has said the church was "under attack by persecutors" and has encouraged pro-church demonstrations including a procession to Christ the Saviour in April.
The defendants' supporters say the charges are politically motivated.
"People are being jailed for harmless civil activity," said Sergei Khramov, an employee at the court where the trial will be held. He said the case prompted him to attend his first opposition rally on Thursday. "It makes us ashamed of the state."
The performance, a protest against the church's support for Putin, was part of a lively protest movement that at its peak saw 100,000 people turn out for rallies in Moscow, some of the largest in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union.
The alter performance was designed to highlight the close relationship between the church and Putin, then prime minister, whose campaign to return to the presidency in a 4 March election was backed clearly, if informally, by Patriarch Kirill.
Putin won easily – amid opposition claims of some vote rigging.
Rights activist Alexeyeva, 85, said she was certain the women would be convicted, because to clear them would embarrass both church and state and cast doubt over the grounds for their arrest.
"But I would very much like to hope their punishment is limited to time served," she said, adding that longer sentences would increase public anger against Putin and provide his opponents – who are planning new protests in the autumn – with fresh ammunition.
The trial comes as Putin is trying to rein in his opponents and forestall potential challenges. He has signed laws tightening controls on foreign-funded civil rights groups and sharply raised fines for violations of public order at street rallies.
Opposition leaders including anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and socialite Ksenia Sobchak have had their homes searched and faced repeated rounds of questioning over violence at a protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration on 7 May.
Navalny is due to appear before investigators in a separate case on Monday, according to his lawyers, who said they were told he would be charged with a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.