SOCHI, Russia - Two members of a Russian punk protest group who recently were released from prison under an amnesty program initiated by President Vladimir Putin, said they were arrested in Sochi on Tuesday.
The two women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, were detained along with other members of the group who were apparently working with them on a new song. They said the arrests had taken place in central Sochi, about 30 minutes’ drive from the Olympic Park where the Winter Games are taking place.
The women and their collaborators were released from a police station in the Adler district early Tuesday evening, and at least five of them emerged wearing the colorful balaclavas that are the group’s trademark.
Russian authorities said the group members had been questioned in connection with a theft that occurred in the hotel where the two women were staying. Supporters of the group dismissed that explanation.
The women posted messages on Twitter describing their arrests in detail, including their trip in a police vehicle to the station.
Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, who acts as a sort of publicity manager for the group, said in an interview outside the police station that the theft investigation was a pretext for interfering with the production of the new song, to be called “Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland.”
“The song takes several days to make,” Verzilov said. “If the police had some questions about the song, then they should have officially said that. Instead, they are trying to charge Nadya, Masha and eight other members of the group with some sort of association with a theft at the hotel.”
The Interfax news agency, citing a government report, said that everyone staying at the hotel was being questioned in connection with the alleged theft.
Tolokonnikova and Alekhina have continued to criticize Putin and the Russian government since their release on Dec. 23. They said that the amnesty was intended to make Putin look merciful in the days leading up to the Olympics, and that they would rather have served the remaining few weeks of their two-year sentences.
The two women were convicted in connection with a protest act that they staged in Moscow’s main cathedral, praying to the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin.
In a series of messages on Twitter, Tolokonnikova said that the two women had been detained three times in three days, one of those times by the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB.
“On the 16th, we were detained for seven hours,” she wrote. “On the 17th, we spent 10 hours with the FSB, and today we are in a police wagon, accused of theft.”
Tolokonnikova wrote that the band was in Sochi to work on the song, but she said they had not yet carried out any protest and were merely walking in the city when they were stopped Tuesday.
Although there had been numerous calls for political protests during the Sochi Olympics, particularly over Russia’s law barring propaganda on same-sex relationships, the games so far have been largely devoid of any political demonstrations.
The Kremlin initially tried to ban political protests outright in Sochi. Putin then issued a decree in January saying demonstrations could take place, but only with government permission and at a designated location. The local authorities chose a park in the village of Khosta, about 10 miles from the Olympic arenas,and have since said there were few applications for rallies.
Some activists, including a local environmental organization, have said that they tried to apply for permits but were strongly pressured by the authorities to withdraw their requests. The environmental group said it had decided to meet with local and federal officials, including the deputy minister for natural resources, instead of staging a demonstration.
The punk-group members received international attention after their convictions in August 2012 on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, in connection with the cathedral protest.
Their case was seen as a vivid example of the Kremlin’s effort to suppress political dissent and to impose harsh prison sentences for even peaceful protest actions. Musicians and artists around the world voiced support for the group members.
Information for this article was contributed by Andrew Roth, Patrick Reevell and Elisabetta Povoledo of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/19/2014