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Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina says she escaped Russia dressed as a food delivery girl

2022-05-12T12:56:30.302Z


Maria Alyokhina, a member of the punk group Pussy Riot, said she fled the country disguised as a food delivery girl.


(CNN) --

Maria Alyokhina, a member of the punk group Pussy Riot, which has long protested Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, said she fled the country disguised as a food delivery girl.

Alyokhina told The New York Times that although she had once refused to leave the country despite multiple arrests and jail terms, she eventually left after Russian authorities said she would serve time in a penal colony.

She has been under "effective house arrest," according to the newspaper, and has been an outspoken critic of the war in Ukraine.

To avoid detection, she said, she dressed in a puffy green jacket usually worn by a food delivery person.

In the photos that she shared with her diary, her girlfriend appears with the jacket and a large lunch box on her back.

During her week-long trip from Russia to Belarus to Lithuania, Alyokhina wore slip-on platform boots.

(In jail, wet wipes were used instead of lanyards, which were not allowed.)

The New York Times reported that she will be wearing the boots when Pussy Riot begins her tour this month.

"I think that Russia no longer has the right to exist," he told the newspaper from Lithuania.

"Even before, there were questions about how it is united, what values ​​it is united by and where it is going. But now I don't think that is an issue anymore."

Other arrests in Russia

Alyokhina has been arrested several times in the last decade for her performances with Pussy Riot.

The group became known internationally in 2012 when they performed an anti-Putin protest anthem criticizing the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church inside a Moscow cathedral.

The women, dressed in balaclavas that hid their faces, shouted: "Mother Maria, please kick Putin out."

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Alyokhina and two other members were found guilty of "hooliganism" for the performance and sentenced to two years in prison.

She was released two months into her sentence, but she has been arrested and jailed six times since last summer for her activism, The New York Times reported.

Another Pussy Riot member, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was also jailed for nearly two years, was placed last year on a Russian "foreign agents" list, which requires those on it to meet "strict financial reporting requirements" and to add a disclaimer to anything they post that identifies them as foreign agents, CNN reported at the time.

Alyokhina told the newspaper that she hopes to return to Russia, but is currently in Iceland, where she is organizing pro-Ukrainian events with appearances by Icelandic artists such as Björk.

War in Ukraine Vladimir Putin

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-05-12

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