Masha Alekhina, a lead member of the Russian feminist punk protest collective Pussy Riot, has been arrested yet again in Moscow. This is the second time in two months that she has been sentenced to 15 days in prison for “propaganda of Nazi symbolism”.
She was detained on Monday after being summoned to register with the corrections service according to the terms of a September verdict on charges of encouraging violation of Covid-19 restrictions at a January 2021 demonstration in support of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
In an Instagram post she wrote that “there was already a police squad waiting” as soon as she exited the corrections service office. She also managed to tweet a photo of the case file, commenting that “this is all that you need to know about Russian justice”. Once the sentence was handed down she also posted a photo of herself reflected in a mirror with her fist raised and the words “15 days” beneath.
In December, the charges were levied against Alekhina after she reposted a 2015 photo of the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko surrounded by swastikas.
This time, according to Mediazona, a prisoners’ rights news site which she co-founded with another Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova in 2014, the offending post was an Instagram image from 2015 depicting three young women in hijabs. The words “Vodka Dudka Islam” are written across one of the women's dresses. The image also includes Hindi script along the bottom, as well as swastikas on either side, which have been blocked out in current reposts to avoid further charges.
RIA Novosti, an official state news agency, described the swastikas in the image as “traditional symbols of Indian culture”.
Alekhina and Tolokonnikova spent nearly two years in prison following their 2012 “punk prayer” against Vladimir Putin, who was then serving as prime minister in between presidential terms, at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral.
A cycle of arrests led several Pussy Riot members to leave Russia in 2021.
Rustem Adagamov, a Prague-based Russian blogger known for his political commentary, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday, that Alekhina too is being pushed out of Russia.
“In this way, the FSB,” he wrote, referring to the Russian state security agency, “is attempting to push Alekhina out of the country for her active anti-fascist position, for her actions against the KGB-FSB.”
Meanwhile, on Wednesday a Moscow court handed down a 15-day sentence against Daria Serenko, an artist, writer and LGBTQ and political activist for posting a voter rights emblem—a red exclamation point in a blue box—associated with Navalny’s organisation. She was detained on Tuesday at a café. Her lawyer pointed out in a Facebook post that while Russian authorities branded Navalny’s organisation as extremist last year, this did not extend to the emblem.