Wearing masks members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova (L) and Masha Alekhina (R) speak to journalists while leaving the police station of Adler, near Sochi, on February 18, 2014 after her arrest earlier in the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Credit: Getty Images
Pussy Riot are coming to Cambridge.
Members of the political punk band are best known for being jailed in their native Russia after they performed a “punk prayer” in a Russian cathedral that was critical of then-prime minister, now president Vladimir Putin. Their arrests and imprisonment spurred an international debate about freedom of speech and expression.
Two members of the group are slated to appear at Harvard’s JFK Jr. Forum this Monday evening. While the event is open to the public, attendees were already drawn from a lottery earlier this week. The talk features no set agenda and audience members will have the opportunity to question the Pussy Riot members.
The talk is entitled “A Conversation with the Feminist Protest Art Collective Pussy Riot” and is being hosted by the school’s Kennedy School of Government. Pussy Riot members Masha Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova are scheduled to speak. Jill Dougherty, a former CNN journalist and current fellow at the Kennedy School, will moderate the discussion.
After their performance at a Russian Orthodox Cathedral, members of the band were found guilty of hooliganism and sentenced to two years in jail. They were granted amnesty in Dec. 2013, although some members speculated they were released to curry favor in the international community in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
During her time in prison, Tolokonnikova went on hunger strike to protest prison conditions.
