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Pussy Riot Women Plan New York Concert Appearance


Maria Alyokhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who were jailed for nearly two years over a Pussy Riot protest action, arrive at a preview of nominees for the inaugural Prudential Eye Awards in Singapore on January 17.
Maria Alyokhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who were jailed for nearly two years over a Pussy Riot protest action, arrive at a preview of nominees for the inaugural Prudential Eye Awards in Singapore on January 17.
Recently freed members of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot will visit New York next month to address a human rights concert, according to "Rolling Stone" and other media.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were released last month from a Russian prison under an amnesty program, having served most of their two-year sentences for hooliganism for a protest action.

Amnesty International said the two activists will speak at the February 5 concert in Brooklyn as part of their campaign against rights abuses by Russian authorities.

Tolokonnikova wrote on her Facebook account on January 22 that she and Alyokhina also plan to visit several U.S. penitentiaries, including a maximum-security prison for female convicts in the state of New York.

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were sentenced to prison in 2012 for an anti-Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral.

After their release last month, the two women pledged to campaign for inmates' rights with a newly launched organization they dubbed "Zone of Law."

The Amnesty International event is called "Bringing Rights Home" and will take place at the Barclays Center, which is partly owned by Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.
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