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Shouting and wearing their trademark garish balaclavas, two members of the punk group Pussy Riot left a police station on Tuesday after being released following several hours of questioning in Sochi, the host city of the Winter Olympics.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, along with seven others, were held by police near Sochi’s ferry terminal, a popular area for fans celebrating the Olympics, and taken to a police station for questioning.
Watch: Pussy Riot members arrested over theft in Sochi

Police said they were questioned in connection with a theft at the hotel where they were staying. No charges were filed.
Tolokonnikova said the detention followed three days of police harassment. She also said the two band members were detained for several hours the previous two days.
“We members of Pussy Riot have been here since late Sunday and we were constantly detained since then,” Tolokonnikova said after her release. “We are constantly surrounded by people, not you journalists, but people who are shadowing us, following our every move and looking for any excuse to detain us.”
Pussy Riot gained international attention in 2012 after barging into Moscow’s main cathedral and performing a “punk prayer” in which they entreated the Virgin Mary to save Russia from Vladimir Putin, who was on the verge of returning to the Russian presidency for a third term.
Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were sentenced to two years in prison, but were released in December under an amnesty bill.
Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, and other people who were detained on Tuesday insisted that Pussy Riot were not protesting or demonstrating when they were taken off the street. But Tolokonnikova said the band is in Sochi with “the goal of staging a Pussy Riot protest.”
Tolokonnikova, Alekhina and three other unidentified women came running out of the police station chanting “Putin will teach you to love the motherland!”
It was not immediately clear whether Pussy Riot would be staying in Sochi or whether they would be protesting.
Yevgeny Feldman, a photographer who has been shadowing Pussy Riot for the past two days and was detained with them Tuesday afternoon, said the band members were filming videos around town for a new song.
Tolokonnikova also said police had shoved her and other detainees and that the group would file a complaint about their treatment to Russia’s Investigative Committee.
Pussy Riot, a performance-art collective which edits its actions into music videos, has become an international flashpoint for those who contend Putin’s government has exceeded its authority in dealing with an array of issues, notably human and gay rights.
Since their release in December, they have made many appearances overseas to push their campaign for improved conditions in Russia’s prisons. Alekhina and Tolokonnikova recently visited the US to take part in an Amnesty International concert.
The area where the group members were detained is in downtown Sochi, about 30 kilometres north of the seaside Olympic venues.
Russia has put severe limitations on protests in Sochi during the Olympics, ordering that any demonstration must get approval and be held only in the neighbourhood of Khosta, an area between Adler and downtown Sochi that is unlikely to be visited by outsiders.
Russia’s suppression of protests has been widely denounced in the West and the Pussy Riot detentions brought renewed criticism.
“In Putin’s Russia, the authorities have turned the Olympic rings – a worldwide symbol of hope and striving for the best of the human spirit – into handcuffs to shackle freedom of expression,” John Dalhuisen, Europe director for Amnesty International, said in a statement.
The actions taken against Pussy Riot came a day after an Italian transgender activist and former lawmaker was detained at the Olympics. Vladimir Luxuria was stopped while carrying a rainbow flag that read in Russian: “Gay is OK.” On Sunday, Luxuria said she was held by police and told not to wear clothing with slogans promoting gay rights.


Two members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot released in Sochi

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (left) and Maria Alyokhina at a police station in Sochi. Photo: AFP

Maria Alekhina, a member of the punk band Pussy Riot, looks out of the back of a police detention vehicle after she and several others were detained in Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (right) and Maria Alekhina. Photo: AFP

Pussy Riot members take anti-Putin campaign to star-studded New York concert

Maria Alyokhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, comprising two-thirds of feminist punk band Pussy Riot, at the Amnesty International press conference. Photo: EPA

Alyokhinafor (left) and Tolokonnikova arrive for an awards ceremony in Singapore earlier last month. Photo: AFP

Officials ban first Russian screening of Pussy Riot film, A Punk Prayer

Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (right) and Maria Alyokhina. Photo: AP

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Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina detained while walking in central Sochi


Shouting and wearing their trademark garish balaclavas, two members of the punk group Pussy Riot left a police station on Tuesday after being released following several hours of questioning in Sochi, the host city of the Winter Olympics.


Two members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot released in Sochi

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina detained while walking in central Sochi

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina detained while walking in central Sochi