Pussy Riot

Foto: Igor Mukhin

Nadja Tolokonnikova (25) is filosofiestudent aan de Staatsuniversiteit van Mokou. Ze is getrouwd met Pjotr Verzilov en heeft een dochter.
Ze heeft een permanente verblijfsstatus voor Canada, terwijl haar echtgenoot zowel de Russische als Canadese nationaliteit heeft.

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Katja Samoetsevitsj (30) ziet er, lopend op gympen en gekleed in jeans en een slobberig sweatshirt, niet direct uit als staatsvijand nummer één van president Poetin. Toch kwam ze, samen met Nadja Tolokonnikova en Masja Aljochina, dicht in de buurt van die status na hun veertig seconden durende 'punkgebed' in februari dit jaar in de Christus Verlosserkathedraal van Moskou.

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Maria Alyokhina (26; foto onder) is a fourth-year student at the Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing in Moscow. She is a poet and participant of the literature courses of Dmitry Vedenyapin and Alexey Kubrik. She is an environmental activist with Greenpeace Russia, and has opposed development projects in the Khimki Forest. She was a volunteer at Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in Moscow.
She has a five-year-old son, Philip.

She is a vegan and reportedly collapsed from hunger during the trial, as no vegan meals were provided in detention. She played an active role in the Pussy Riot trial:  cross-examining witnesses, and aggressively questioning the charges and proceedings. She said in her closing statement:

For me, this trial only has the status of a "so-called" trial. And I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of lies and fiction, of the thinly disguised fraud in the sentence of this so-called court. 
Because you can only take away my so-called freedom. And that is the exact kind that exists now in Russia. But nobody can take away my inner freedom.