Freed Pussy Riot members to work together for human rights in Russia

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Released and now reunited, two members of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot are to work together on human rights issues including the plight of prisoners.

Maria Alyokhina flew to Siberia where her band-mate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had been held.

“We would like to discuss the goals, tasks and structure of our project,” Tolokonnikova told reporters. “We want to outline them together and in detail. We both have some ideas about it and would like to transform them into a joint project.”

“We did not remain indifferent to the situation of women in jail, to the fact that they are seen as malleable putty,” Alyokhina added. “We want to change that.”

Jailed for two years for hooliganism in 2012 after a protest against President Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral, the woman have denounced their early release under an amnesty as a propaganda stunt by the Kremlin.