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Oslo, Norway (CNN) -- Here's a quick way to get arrested in modern Russia: Walk into a cathedral wearing a neon mask and carrying a guitar, stand on the pulpit and scream punk songs with lyrics like "Virgin Mary drive Putin away!" Throw in a few more obscenities, and that's how three members of the punk band Pussy Riot ended up in Russian prison in early March, after criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the group says is in bed with the Russian Orthodox Church and is unfairly cracking down on free speech.

Wrapped up against Russia's midwinter in vivid balaclavas, brightly coloured minidresses and not much else, eight members of an all-girl punk group stood on a platform in Red Square and started an impromptu show. "Riot in Russia!" they screamed, before taunting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and urging Russians to hit the streets in protest. The band, Pussy Riot, has been gaining Internet notoriety after their January 20 gig of sorts, the latest in a string of impromptu performances to protest Putin's candidacy for the presidency.

One jailed member of the punk band Pussy Riot unexpectedly walked free from a Moscow courtroom, but the other two now head toward a harsh punishment for their irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin: a penal colony.

After being sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,” members of Russian feminist punk rock outfit Pussy Riot could very well be on the verge of being released, thanks to the country’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev.

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian Orthodox Church is asking for clemency for three jailed members of the rock band Pussy Riot if they repent for their "punk prayer" for deliverance from President Vladimir Putin at Moscow's main cathedral.

In the spirit of christian charity, the Russian Orthodox Church has plead for leniency on behalf of the convicted band, Pussy Riot.

By the end of the first week of Pussy Riot's trial, everyone in the shabby Moscow courthouse was tired. Guards, armed with submachine guns, grabbed journalists and threw them out of the room at will.

Two members of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot have been sent to remote prison camps to serve their sentences, the group has said.

Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women's prison camp in Perm, a Siberian region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union's harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons.

One of the jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot has been moved into a solitary cell following tensions with other inmates, Russian prison officials said Friday.
Stanislav Volegov, a spokesman for the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains where Maria Alekhina is serving her sentence, said on Rain TV that she was moved into a "safe" cell on Wednesday at her own request.