Pussy Riot specializes in sudden

The musicians said the charge was "preposterous," arguing that artists "make legitimate political protest and fight for freedom of speech."
The Pussy Riot members went on trial Monday, charged with hooliganism after performing a song criticizing President Vladimir Putin in of Moscow's grandest cathedrals, Russia's state news agency reported.
"Mother Mary drive Putin away," the band screamed, their faces covered in neon masks, inside Christ Savior Cathedral in February. were arrested soon after.



The charge carries a feasible seven-year sentence.
Putin is visiting London on Thursday, Pussy Riot's celebrity backers noted as they urged him to "ensure these females receive a fair trial."
"We are concerned about recent reports that food is being withheld from them and that they have appeared in court in a cage," their supporters said in a letter to the Times of London.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, grinned at cameras and waved their handcuffed arms behind their backs Monday as police brought them from a van in to the court.
They appeared in court in an enclosure that forced them to bend down to speak through tiny window to be heard.
The females apologized to Orthodox Christian believers in the event that they felt they had been insulted, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported. The trial is taking place at the Khamovnichesky Court, the agency said.


The punk prayer was inspired by the women's anger about the relationship between the Russian government and the Orthodox Church, according to their manager, Tolokonnikova's husband.
The Orthodox leader Patriarch Kyril has been widely reported as saying Putin's years in power have been a miracle from God.
The band's behavior in of Russia's most sacred cathedrals has outraged lots of of the country's faithful.