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Court to consider Pussy Riot activist's appeal on December 24

Earlier, Moscow's Zamoskvorechye court ruled that Pussy Riot videos were extremist and restricted access to them

MOSCOW, December 11 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow City Court on December 24 will review two appeals lodged by Pussy Riot activist Yekaterina Samutsevich against the ruling by Zamoskvorechye court judge Marina Musimovich to recognize four Pussy Riot videos extremist and the refusal to acknowledge her an interested person in review of the issue, the court's spokeswoman Yevgenia Pazukhina told Itar-Tass.

"The Moscow City Court will review Samutsevich's complaints at 14:05, on December 24," Pazukhina said.

Earlier, Moscow's Zamoskvorechye court ruled that Pussy Riot videos were extremist and restricted access to them. Access was restricted to practically all the punk group's videos, including the notorious punk prayer at the Christ the Savior Church, which made groundwork for criminal prosecution of three Pussy Riot activists.

Judge Musimovich refused to recognize Yekaterina Samutsevich, a Pussy Riot activist, "an interested person" in the case. After hearing the parties' arguments, Musimovich said there were no grounds to meet Samutsevich's petition.

In her statement, the Pussy Riot activist claimed that if the court recognized the video as extremist she could face criminal prosecution under penal code Article 282 /inciting hate or strife/, because investigators regarded her as one of the producers of the video in question. In her opinion, the court's refusal to acknowledge that she was an interested person violated her rights.

The prosecutor said the court's refusal to grant Samutsevich's petition would not violate her rights or interests, as the verdict by the Khamovniki court which had found her guilty of hooliganism for the punk prayer, had already come into effect.

On August 17, Moscow's Khamovniki court found three Pussy Riot members - Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich - guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hate and strife for their action in the Church. Each was sentenced to two years in a general regime penitentiary. The court said the defendants' action was not politically motivated although the young women had claimed to the contrary.

On October 10, the Moscow City Court softened the punishment for Samutsevich by giving her a suspended sentence. If left the sentences for her two colleagues unchanged.