Recently, the Putin regime in Russia extended the pre-trial detention of 3 members of the feminist punk group “Pussy Riot” until January 2013. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich had been in detention since March after they were arrested for committing the ultimate crime in Vladmir Putin’s Russia: singing a protest song, “punk-prayer” called “Our Lady, chase Putin out”!

If convicted, they could face an additional 7 years in prison. The New Yorker has rightly called this affair: “Putin’s Religious War Against Pussy Riot”.

We need to act now to stop this madness. Please go the Amnesty International website and sign THIS PETITION calling on Russian authorities to drop all charges and release them immediately.

More from the New Yorker:

The prosecution of the Pussy Riot women is more than an act of absurd injustice and cruelty; it is a sign that the Russian state is increasingly lashing out against those citizens it sees as overly modernized. Vladimir Putin has often said that modernization is the goal of his regime, but its policy is increasingly slipping toward something egregiously anti-modern, obscurantist, even medieval. The Pussy Riot case is a telling illustration of Putin’s political crackdown—and of his increasing reliance on the Russian Orthodox Church as a resort of the most conservative societal forces.

Please share the petition as widely as possible.