Pussy Riot members arrested in Qatar while trying to rally during the 2022 World Cup

Members of the Pussy Riot group were detained in Qatar, they planned to run onto the field during the final match at the 2022 World Cup in protest. About it writes Reuters, citing activists.

Veronika Nikulshina (included in the register of media-foreign agents) and the publisher of the online media “Mediazona” (included in the register of media-foreign agents) Pyotr Verzilov (also recognized as a media-foreign agent) planned to participate in the action. One activist also took part in the action, whose name was not given.

The purpose of the action was to protest against Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny and the oppression of women in Iran. It is specified that the activists did not have time to run out onto the field, they were detained by security officers.

This is not the first protest action that Pussy Riot members have planned for the World Cup. In particular, in 2018, when the World Cup was held in Moscow, activists during the final match ran out to the football field. They were wearing police uniforms. It was the action “The policeman enters the game”, the purpose of which is to draw attention to the problems of compliance with the laws by the authorities in Russia. As a result, the group members were given 15 days of administrative arrest. In addition, they were banned from attending sports competitions for a period of three years.

In September 2021, the Ministry of Justice turned on Mediazon, as well as editor-in-chief Sergei Smirnov and publisher Pyotr Verzilov in the register of media-foreign agents. In December, Smirnov and Verzilov filed a lawsuit demanding that they be removed from this list, but in January 2022 the court refused to remove the status of media-foreign agents from them.