Associate professor of comparative literature and culture at Moscow State University spoke about two young women Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Mariya Alekhina, who, in violation of Russian law, have been kept in custody in Moscow for more than seven months now. On August 17 they and the third activist Ekaterina Samutsevich, whose sentence was later suspended, were sentenced to two years in a penal colony, where relations are very cruel, sometimes escalating into physical violence. p**** Riot defense lawyers foresee that the women’s lives may be in danger there. The three are members of a protest p**** Riot punk band, which performed a punk-prayer at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on 21 February, 2012. The group prayed to the Mother of God to drive Putin from the Kremlin, urged the Patriarch to believe in God, and not in Putin, and protested against state violence. Apparently, President Putin interpreted this action as personal offense, and, as in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovski, pursues a vendetta against the young women, who have little children. The aggressive campaign, unleashed by the church in mass media and ROC parishes, accuse the group of blasphemy, fomenting religious hatred, anti-church activity and extremism, while the state administration tends to carry out their demand with utmost zeal, using against the group the entire repressive arsenal of the criminal law. The women were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, despite insisting it was a form of political protest. Their quick trial was marked by procedural violations and absurdities. Their actions, however, have not been qualified as criminal offense either by independent experts, or by numerous believers who support the women.