Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) on Friday, 17 August 2012, Ms Yekaterina Samutsevich, Ms Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ms Maria Alyokhina, members of the Russian band Pussy Riot, were each sentenced to 2 years in jail after being found guilty by a Russian court of ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ following a performance which was critical of President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral,

(ii) the Russian Orthodox Church described what the women did as ‘sacrilege’ but also requested clemency be shown to the convicted women, and

(iii) Amnesty International has stated that, while the women’s protest may have been offensive, their sentence was a ‘bitter blow to freedom of expression’; and

(b) expresses its concern at the severity of the sentence and the seeming intolerance of freedom of expression in Russia.

Question agreed to.