PUSSY RIOTING: Girl Group Pussy Riot Sentenced To Jail, Canadian Immigration Papers Questioned

A judge sentenced three members of Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot to two years in jail on Friday for staging a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a church, an act the judge called “blasphemous.”

Judge Marina Syrova found the women guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, describing them as blasphemers who had deliberately offended Russian Orthodox believers by storming the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral in February to belt out a song deriding Mr. Putin.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, stood watching in handcuffs in a glass courtroom cage.

A parallel theme in the Pussy Riot case has been the Canadian connection to one of its members and concerns that such link has been used by the authorities to portray the band as being disloyal.

There are conflicting accounts about whether Ms. Tolokonnikova is a Canadian permanent resident.

Her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, who went to high school in Canada, has dual citizenship.

Mr. Verzilov has told CBC that Ms. Tolokonnikova has Canadian residency status

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