By Sabine Siebold and Lidia Kelly
(Reuters) – Members of Russia’s Pussy Riot band were detained on Sunday after attempting to storm the pitch on the World Cup final in Qatar to protest the war in Ukraine, the imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the oppression of girls in Iran, activists said.
In line with the Cinema for Peace Foundation, a Berlin-based charity that focuses on humanitarian and environmental issues, security detained member Nika Nikulshina, an associate of the protest group, Peter Verzilov, and a Ukrainian member of Pussy Riot.
Reuters was not capable of independently confirm the reports.
The activists were stopped by security forces before they may invade the pitch, Cinema for Peace said in a press release.
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Jaka Bizilj, founding father of the Cinema for Peace Foundation, told Reuters that Verzilov told him that he was pulled back by security forces seconds before entering the pitch.
“After I texted with Peter he was in police detention,” Bizilj said.
Verzilov, certainly one of Russia’s best known human rights activists and the publisher of independent media outlet Mediazona, has been placed by Moscow on its wanted list.
Navalny, probably the most distinguished domestic critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a robust opponent of the war in Ukraine, is serving prison terms totalling 11-1/2 years for fraud, contempt of court and parole violations, all of which he rejects as trumped-up charges.
Iran’s clerical rulers have faced the largest protests in years since September when 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died within the custody of the morality police who implement strict dress codes.
The 2018 World Cup final in Moscow was briefly interrupted when Pussy Riot activists, including Verzilov, burst onto the pitch to attract attention to human rights abuses in Russia before being hauled off by stewards.
Cinema for Peace evacuated Verzilov after the 2018 World Cup in Moscow for treatment for alleged poisoning. The inspiration also brought Navalny in 2020 from Russia to Berlin for life-saving treatment after his poisoning.
(Writing in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Paul Simao)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.
