Pussy Riot member year on: I have no regrets

The Associated Press, Thursday, February 21, 2013, 4:04am (PST)

MOSCOW (AP) — One year after the band Pussy Riot staged an anti-President Vladimir Putin stunt in Moscow's main cathedral that resulted in their arrest and imprisonment, a released band member says she has no regrets.

Yekaterina Samutsevich told the AP on Thursday that she is glad that their punk performance in Christ the Savior Cathedral on Feb. 21, 2012, made Russians more aware of the Orthodox Church's increasingly close ties with the Russian government.

Samutsevich, Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, drawing protests around the world about Russia's intolerance of dissent. Samutsevich was later released on appeal.

Band members insisted that their performance was not aimed at religion.