Pussy Riot members released from jail

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Maria Alekhina, second from left, a member of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot peaks to the media at the Committee against Torture after being released from prison, in Nizhny Novgorod, on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/The Committee against Torture)

Two jailed members of the Russian punk bank Pussy Riot were released Monday following an amnesty law that both described as a Kremlin public relations stunt ahead of the Winter Olympics.

Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were granted amnesty last week in a move largely viewed as the Kremlin's attempt to soothe criticism of Russia's human rights record ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February.

The third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on a suspended sentence months after all three were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in prison for the performance at Moscow's main cathedral in March 2012.

The band members said their protest was meant to raise their concern about increasingly close ties between the state and the church.

Russian parliament passed the amnesty bill last week, allowing the release of thousands of inmates. Alekhina and Tolokonnikova, who were due for release in March, qualified for amnesty because they have small children.

There has been an international outcry over Russia's human rights record, including for passing a law earlier this year that bans so-called homosexual propaganda among minors, which gay groups in Russia and abroad say feeds the existing enmity toward gay people in the country.

Tolokonnikova walked out of a prison in the eastern Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on Monday, smiling to reporters and flashing a V sign.

"How do you like our Siberian weather here?" said Tolokonnikova, wearing a down jacket but no hat or scarf in -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees Fahrenheit). Tolokonnikova said that she and Alekhina will set up a human rights group to help prisoners.

Tolokonnikova said the way prisons are run reflect the way the country is governed.

"I saw this small totalitarian machine from the inside," the 24-year-old said. "Russia functions the same way the prison colony does," she said.

Alekhina, who was released earlier on Monday from a prison outside the Volga river city of Nizhny Novgorod, said she would have stayed behind bars to serve her term if she was free to turn it down.

"If I had a chance to turn it down, I would have done it, no doubt about that," she told Dozhd TV. "This is not an amnesty. This is a hoax and a PR move."

She said the amnesty bill covers less than 10 per cent of the prison population and only a fraction of women with children behind bars. Women convicted of grave crimes, even if they have children, are not eligible for amnesty.