Pussy Riot Set To Be Freed Under Amnesty Bill

It looks like the imprisoned members of activist
punk group Pussy Riot will be freed soon. Russia’s
parliament passed a Putin-backed prisoner amnesty bill on Wednesday
by a margin of 446 – 0. To make it official, Putin will need to
sign the bill into law tomorrow.

The bill is expected to free around 2,000
prisoners, many of whom have not committed violent crimes or are
first-time offenders, minors or mothers of young children. A
last-minute amendment tacked onto the bill adds additional
prisoners, including the Pussy Riot duo as well as
the Arctic
30 Greenpeace activists, who have been charged with hooliganism
but are still awaiting trial.

According to NPR, the
amnesty, which has been timed
to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Russia’s
constitution, “has been largely viewed as the Kremlin’s
attempt to soothe criticism of Russia’s human rights records ahead
of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February.”

Even if the law is passed, though, Russian authorities have up
to six months to process the releases. Prison officials
have indicated,
however, they are ready to immediately release Pussy Riot’s
remaining members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria
Alyokhina. 

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were arrested alongside a third
member of the band, Yekaterina Samutsevich, in March last year for
a protest performance in the Orthodox church. Samutsevich was
released on probation shortly thereafter. The remaining members
continued to make international
headlines during their imprisonment; particularly
Tolokonnikova, who published an open
letter detailing brutal “slavery-like conditions” in a
Mordovia prison. 

Some activists, including Pussy Riot, have expressed their
skeptcism about the announcement. Petya Verzilov, Tolokonnikova’s
husband, told the Guardian, “They
[Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina] are slightly sceptical of course.
When you’re living in these conditions it’s hard to think about the
Duma passing some bill, and it seems like it could never happen, so
it’s a big surprise for them that it does actually seem to be
happening.”

Additionally, some opposition lawmakers and human rights groups
have said the bill doesn’t
go nearly far enough. It doesn’t free most political prisoners
or those charged with more serious crimes.

Valentin Gefter, director of the Institute of Human Rights

said the bill is “very narrow and decorative in
character.” As it stands, the amnesty is expected to cover less
than 2 percent of Russia’s prison population. 

In comparison with Barack Obama’s clemency record though,
Putin’s amnesty bill is remarkably liberal.

Five years into his presidency, Obama has granted
just 39
pardons – a record lower than that of both Bushes,
Clinton, Reagan, Carter and Nixon (and virtually every other
president.) As Reason’s Jacob Sullum wrote earlier
this year:

With the exception of Washington’s first term, then, Obama so
far has been stingier with pardons and commutations than any other
president, especially when you take into account the growth of the
federal penal system during the last century, the elimination of
parole, the proliferation of mandatory minimums, and the
concomitant increase in petitions. This is a remarkable development
for a man who proclaims that
“life is all about second chances” and who has repeatedly described
our criminal justice system as excessively harsh.

As Fox News notes though,
the problem seems to be, in part, a larger trend of presidential
pardons gradually declining over the 20th century. They argue the
Justice Department is a main culprit:

Margaret Love, a lawyer who served as the U.S. pardon attorney
in the Bush and Clinton administrations, said… the Justice
Department has become “unremittingly hostile” to the pardon
process.