Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina have been arrested in Russia again, according to reports.
The punk protest activists have been involved in a host of incidents over the past week, including being detained in the Russian city of Sochi, where this year’s Winter Olympics were held, and another in which they were attacked with whips by Cossack miltia.
Now, according to Billboard, the pair have been arrested as part of a group of over 100 people accused with “disturbing the peace” outside of a Moscow court. They were reportedly voicing their support for the May 6 Prisoners, who are activists who were given prison terms for a protest against Vladmir Putin in 2012.
Earlier this week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak dismissed the recent alleged assault on Pussy Riot. Reports had claimed that Pussy Riot had been set upon by approximately a dozen Cossacks, who ripped off their masks and threw the group’s guitar away. It is also alleged that one of the Cossacks used pepper spray. The altercation is said to have lasted several minutes and left one Pussy Riot member with a bloodied face, but the police did not make any arrests once they arrived.
However, Kozak said: “The girls came here specifically to provoke this conflict. They had been searching for it for some time and finally they had this conflict with local inhabitants.”
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were released from prison in December 2013 after serving a two-year sentence for protesting in a Moscow church.
Earlier this year Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were criticised in an open letter by activists claiming to be members of Pussy Riot for launching human rights group Zona Prava (Justice Zone).
The statement also suggested that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova have ignored attempts to communicate and expressed frustration with the way the pair were presented at a recent Amnesty International concert in New York.