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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Garry Kasparov was speaking to reporters outside the Moscow courthouse where the sentencing of the band Pussy Riot was taking place. Suddenly he was violently seized by police and forced onto a bus. Later he was beaten by a group of police.

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.

It seems as if we are in a time of unprecedented struggle over the meaning of women's bodies and sexuality. Controversy is swirling about an American University professor who breast-fed a baby in class; topless photos of Kate Middleton have been released; and a Time magazine cover showing a mother breast-feeding her toddler sparked even more tittering in May. It is not just the breast that is contested: Pussy Riot, the punk band, was sentenced to two years in a Russian prison after a staged performance in which they did high kicks that showed too much of their bodies.