Pussy Riot Liken Detention Centres To Russian Prisons

Australia's asylum seeker policy has been compared with the way prisoners are treated in Russian prison camps by two members of infamous feminist punk band-cum-activists Pussy Riot.

Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina are in the country to speak at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, in Sydney, and during their panel responded to an earlier plea for them to boycott the event altogether in protest of co-organiser the St James Ethics Centre's links to Australia's Operation Sovereign Borders program. 

"We were surprised by the problems here, such as detention camps, which are similar to what is happening in Russia," Tolokonnikova said.

According to reports of Tolokonnikova and Alekhina's appearance, the pair compared their own hunger strike, which they engaged in while incarcerated last year, with those undertaken by those being held in detention centres, but that's not the only issue they've taken with things on this side of the planet — they additionally called for Russian president Vladimir Putin to be banned from the upcoming G20 world leaders' conference in Brisbane ("We think that this person has no place at the G20," Alekhina said) and criticised the gender balance of Australia's political landscape, a point reiterated by the band in a retweeted message:

Pussy Riot received amnesty late last year after being imprisoned in 2012 for hooliganism, but also told their audience at the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas that the situation in Russia has become so repressive that they couldn't even repeat their original offending performance if they wanted to.

"Unfortunately, it wouldn't even be one second of our performance," Alekhina said. "Now it's impossible to do anything."