PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee welcome’s today’s news that one of the three Pussy Riot band members accused of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, Ekaterina Samusevich, has been freed on a suspended sentence. However, two other band members, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, remain in prison to serve the remainder of their two year sentences in a penal colony. That the two women remain in prison, and that the third, while free, has not been acquitted, is deeply shocking. PEN International continues to call for their immediate and unconditional release. Read more