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Russia

Pussy Riot Member Freed By Appeals Court

AP, BBC NEWS (UK)

Worldcrunch

A Moscow appeals court has freed Yekaterina Samutsevich, one of the convicted women from the punk band Pussy Riot, but upheld two-year jail terms for the other two.

The judge ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich's sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of Moscow’s main cathedral by guards before she could take part in the protest song for which Samutsevich, 30, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," AP reports.

BBC News reveals that the decision was met with cheers in court.

Earlier the trio spoke defiantly at the appeal hearing, saying their protest was political and not anti-Church.

Alyokhina added that they had "lost hope in this trial."

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LGBTQ Plus

Why Is Homophobia In Africa So Widespread?

Uganda's new law that calls for life imprisonment for gay sex is part of a wider crackdown against LGBTQ+ rights that is particularly harsh on the African continent.

Photo of LGBTQ Ugandan group

LGBTQ group in Uganda

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

Uganda has just passed a law that allows for life imprisonment for same-sex sexual relations, punishing even the "promotion" of homosexuality. Under the authoritarian regime of Yoweri Museveni for the past 37 years, Uganda has certainly gone above and beyond existing anti-gay legislation inherited from British colonization.

But the country of 46 million is not alone, as a wider crackdown against LGBTQ+ rights continues to spread as part of a wider homophobic climate across Africa.

There is exactly one country on the continent, South Africa, legalized same-sex marriage in 2006, and another southern African state, Botswana, lifted the ban on homosexuality in 2019. But in total, more than half of the 54 African states have more or less repressive laws providing for prison sentences.

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