Pussy Riot Member Yekaterina Samutsevich Freed: Two Year Sentence Suspended

Pussy Riot Member, Yekaterina Samutsevich is freed from a two year sentence. After filing an appeal, a Moscow appeals court freed the Pussy Riot member, but the prior decision is upheld for the two other members.

In August, the group was jailed and convicted for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. The three women were protesting against President Vladimir Putin and claimed their performance inside Moscow's main cathedral was political and not an attack on religion. The group's protest was in midst to the re-election of Putin.

The ruling to overturn Samutsevich's  two year sentence was suspended only because she was thrown out of the cathedral before she could remove her guitar form the case to join her other members in the performance. Irina Khrunova, Samutsevich's lawyer said, "The punishment for an incomplete crime is much lighter than for a completed one. She did not participate in the actions the court found constituted hooliganism."

The group performed "Punk Prayer" a song asking Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin. The Russian President just received his third term this past March. In a statement the group expressed their apologies is they offended any religious believers in court.  During the appeal ruling Samutsevich said." The idea of the protest was political, not religious," she added. "In this and in previous protests we acted against the current government of the president, and against the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution of the Russian government, against the political comments of the Russian patriarch. Exactly because of this I don't consider that I committed a crime."