No Russian feels any respect for Pussy Riot

No Russian feels any respect to members of the notorious band Pussy Riot that staged a "punk prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, an opinion poll conducted by Levada-Center said. The survey was conducted among 1,601 people in 130 settlements of 45 regions of the country. 

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The vast majority (78 %) of Russians heard about the scandalous performance of Pussy Riot in February last year. As many as 27% of respondents feel aversion to the members of the band, 23 % of respondents can not say anything positive about the convicted girls. One in five respondents (20%) said that they were indifferent to them. About 19% of the polled said that they are annoyed when they hear anything about the band. There are those who sympathized with them - 6%; another 2% can not say anything bad about the girls.

Speaking about the motives of the infamous act in the Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, 23% of respondents said that it was staged against the Church and the faithful (this is 9% higher than compared with results of a similar survey last year). As many as 19% of respondents believe that Pussy Riot arranged the performance against the government. According to 17% of the participants of the survey, the girls were against the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in politics reports Interfax.

More than a half (55%) of respondents believe that the Pussy Riot trial was objective and fair. As many as 24% of the polled questioned, the court's impartiality.

Russian people's views about the verdict against the girls was not so straightforward. Forty-two percent believe that the girls were sentenced in accordance with evidence collected against them. Twenty-two percent believe that the decision was made for political reasons. Twenty-one percent of Russians believe that the outcome of the case was influenced by both objective evidence and instructions from authorities.

After the punk prayer at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, police detained three participants of the action - Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich. On August 17, a Moscow court sentenced them to two years in penal colony for hooliganism. October 10, the Moscow City Court changed the punishment for Samutsevich and released her from custody in the courtroom. The verdict against Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were left unchanged.

Many human rights activists believe that the prosecution of the girls is based on political motives. The convicted musicians were recognized as prisoners of conscience by international human rights organization Amnesty International.

Pravda.Ru asked expert opinion from TV presenter Vladimir Soloviev.

"The fact that the girls do not evoke respect with most Russians was clear from the very beginning. It was sad, though, to face the current system of sentencing, not even the trial itself, but the fact that offense of this type falls under the article, which stipulates up to six years in prison. A sentence like this seems to be somewhat embarrassing, because other more serious crimes in our country stipulate more lenient sentences.

"People already forget about them, but do they have anything to remember? This is a peculiarity of our century. There are waves of information coming all the time, people forget everything very quickly.

"What is interesting is that the number of those, who do not trust the court ruling, is even smaller than the number of those, who hardly ever trust the court and our justice system. This is a bit strange to me: the Russians do not support this behavior in the church and regard the judicial system with suspicion."

Pravda.Ru