Pussy Riot members briefly detained

RUSSIA: Two members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were briefly detained yesterday after rallying for the release of a Ukrainian filmmaker outside his Siberian prison.

During Monday’s protest in Yakutsk where Oleg Sentsov is serving his sentence, the band members unfurled a banner on a nearby bridge that read ``Free Sentsov!’'

Longtime Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina tweeted that she and Olga Borisova were taken to a police station following their detention earlier in the day and faced a court hearing over charges of holding an unauthorised rally.

Borisova later said on Facebook that she and Alyokhina were released after a judge found flaws in the case.

It was unclear if the police would refile charges.

A Russian military court convicted Sentsov, who comes from the Crimean Peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, of conspiracy to commit terror attacks and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Sentsov, who made two short movies and the 2012 feature film Gamer, denied the charges, which he and his supporters denounced as political punishment for his opposition to Crimea’s annexation.

The US and the EU have criticised his conviction and called for his release, and numerous cultural figures in Russia and abroad have urged the Russian government to free him. - AP