Russia: Video shows Pussy Riot members under attack

Uniformed men roughed up and whipped band members as they tried to perform

Members of the punk collective Pussy Riot were roughed up and attacked with a whip when they tried to stage an anti-Putin protest in Sochi. Screen shot from Sky News

A video posted by the Associated Press Feb 19 shows several uniformed men, described as Cossack militia, attacking members of the punk collective Pussy Riot as they tried to stage a performance near advertising for the Sochi Games, Pink News reports.

One of the men is seen whipping a member of the group and a photographer, while other officers roughed up other band members, throwing one to the ground.

On Feb 18, group members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were seen exiting a Sochi police station after being detained on suspicion of theft. They then ran down a street, reportedly singing the lyrics to a new song that condemns Russian President Vladimir Putins leadership.

Tolokonnikova, who told the BBC that police detained them for about 10 hours after they arrived in the resort city to make a statement about the Winter Games, said there is no room for political dissent.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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