Russian punkers Pussy Riot hit New York City with claws bared Tuesday — challenging President Obama to call out Vladimir Putin for the human-rights abuses going on in Russia.
“This call and appeal is not to be afraid to publicly say your thoughts about what you feel is happening in Russia once you are there during your next visit,” Nadya Tolokonnikova said at a Midtown press conference during the band’s first US appearance.
She and fellow formerly jailed band member Maria Alyokhina spoke out on the eve of their being honored in a star-studded Amnesty International concert Wednesday night at Barclays Center.
Alyokhina said Americans are getting a rosy and false view of Russia because of the Winter Olympics site in Sochi.
“We would for Americans to really look at Russia and see Russia beyond the images of Olympic objects and buildings,” she said. “The only thing which connects these objects to the country is taxpayer money which has been stolen and which has been used to build these Olympic objects.”
The women were released in December after nearly two years in jail following a conviction for “hooliganism” — performing a protest at a Moscow church. A third member of the group was freed earlier.
They said they would start their own human-rights organization, the Zone of Rights, and thanked Westerners for writing to them in jail.
“What makes you keep on living and keep on wanting to live, even behind prison bars, is that feeling of solidarity and compassion,” Tolokonnikova said. “It goes even through thick prison walls.”
Madonna is scheduled to introduce Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina, whom she calls “my fellow freedom fighters,” at the “Bringing Human Rights Home” concert, the first major Amnesty International show in six years. The Russians will speak but not perform at the show.
Asked if they would ever perform again, Tolokonnikova said, “It’s absolutely impossible to take this out of us.”
Madonna joined the chorus of the band’s supporters this week.“I have admired [Pussy Riot’s] courage and have long supported their commitment and the sacrifices they have made in the name of freedom of expression and human rights,” she said.
The Pussy Riot protest still doesn’t sit well with many Russians. A poll released Monday found nearly 40 percent disapproved of Putin’s cutting short their prison sentences.