The defense of a Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, who was convicted last year of hooliganism for singing a song against President Vladimir Putin, will file a supervisory appeal against her sentence with the Supreme Court, her lawyer said Wednesday.
The appeal from the feminist punk rocker follows a similar application with the same court by another band member, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, which was supported by Russia's Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin.
In February 2012, five young women wearing brightly colored balaclavas staged a "punk prayer" in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral.
In August 2012, a Moscow court sentenced Alyokhina and two other Pussy Riot members — Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich — to two years in prison for hooliganism.
In October 2012, the Moscow City Court reduced Samutsevich's sentence to a suspended term and released her immediately, after her attorney successfully argued she had been seized by security guards prior to reaching the altar.
Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina's sentences were upheld and the pair is scheduled to be released in March.
Material from The Moscow Times was used in this report.