Show your support for Pussy Riot

Maria, Ekaterina and Nadezhda are serving a two-year sentence in a Russian prison colony for holding a protest gig in a Moscow church, as part of punk band Pussy Riot.

Pussy Riot will have their appeal heard by Moscow City Court on 1 October.

Putin calls them 'childish'. We call them prisoners of conscience.

Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevich are three Russian performers. In February 2012 they played a gig in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral with four other women in their band Pussy Riot. In March they were arrested by the Moscow police, for 'hooliganism on grounds of religious hatred'. After nearly six months in detention (because of the 'risk' Moscow authorities believe they posed if granted bail), the three women were sentenced to two years in prison.

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A symbolic blow for free speech in Russia

We call Maria, Nadezhda and Ekaterina prisoners of conscience because we believe that they were arrested and then sentenced purely for peacefully expressing their opinions - an integral part of everyone's human right to free speech.

Daring? Yes. Illegal? No.

Pussy Riot will have known performing anti-Putin lyrics to a punk tune in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral was a massive risk. Yet, by international human rights standards, their behaviour was not illegal. Read more about Pussy Riot