in brief: pussy riot members attacked with paint and rubbish
Image: Denis Bochkarev
Two members of the Russian feminist punk protest group, Pussy Riot, were attacked last week by several men at a McDonald’s restaurant in Nizhny Novgorod.
In a video uploaded by the group, several men are seen attacking Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina with rubbish and green paint in syringes. They stand over the two women, emptying plastic bags of rubbish, squirting the paint and physically attacking them, at the same time shouting, ‘Go to America!’
Alyokhina said she suffered head injuries, and Tolokonnikova had chemical burns.
The men wore patriotic symbols, St George ribbons which commemorate the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
Both members spent two years in prison for performing a ‘punk prayer’ as part of a protest against Vladimir Putin, only recently being released in December.
While Pussy Riot is celebrated in the west as activists who fight for freedom of speech, they are disliked by many people in Russia’s socially conservative provinces, where support for Putin is strong.
In the video, Tolokonnikova is seen saying ‘It hurts! Why are you doing this? You don’t have the right to hurt me. Please don’t do that anymore.’
Of course, this is nothing new to the members of Pussy Riot.
In February, members of the group attempted to film a protest video in Sochi, during the Winter Olympics, only to be beaten and whipped by Cossacks, the Russian militia, before the police intervened.
