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Court turns down first civil lawsuit vs Pussy Riot

Presiding Judge Maxim Sokolov found no evidence to the moral damage

MOSCOW, September 7 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow Kuntsevo District Court has turned down Novosibirsk resident Irina Ruzankina’s claim for 30,000 rubles as a compensation of moral damage she incurred from the Pussy Riot performance at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow.

Presiding Judge Maxim Sokolov found no evidence to the moral damage.

Ruzankina did not attend the court hearing on Friday. Her claim said the punk prayer insulted her religious feelings and made her suffer, which affected her human and civil rights guaranteed by international acts, the Russian constitution and laws. She also said that the Pussy Riot girls breached her right to mental comfort.

Ruzankina aspired for the gubernatorial position in the Novosibirsk region in 2003 but was denied registration as a candidate.

That was the first civil lawsuit filed vs. Pussy Riot punk band members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich who were found guilty of religiously-motivated hooliganism and sentenced to two years in a general penitentiary on August 17.

The Moscow Kuntsevo District Court has two similar lawsuits, from residents of Novosibirsk and Berdsk, to hear. The plaintiffs, Ivan Krasnitsky and Yuri Zadoya, said that the Pussy Riot band insulted their religious feelings and caused moral damage they evaluated at 30,000 rubles each.

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