Jailed Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been released from prison, it has been confirmed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the punk rockers' release at a press conference today (Thursday 19 December, 2013), according to Reuters.
Tolokonnikova, 24, and Alyokhina, 25, were serving a two-year jail sentence for 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility' after their infamus 'punk prayer' against Putin and his connection to the Russian Orthodox church in Moscow's main cathedral back in February, 2012.
Now, a new amnesty law provides freedom for those "who haven’t committed violent crimes, first-time offenders, minors and women with small children" - meaning that the pair have been freed before their March release date, largely due to the fact that they are both mothers.
The amnesty also allows 30 people arrested in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling to avoid trial.
Cynics have argued that the amnesty was drafted to handle the more publicised 'attacks on human rights' in an attempt to improve Russia's image ahead of them hosting the upcoming Winter Olympics, but Putin claims that it has nothing to do with the Greenpeace activists or Pussy Riot in mind. - but to mark the 20th anniversary of Russia's post-Soviet constitution.
"It (the amnesty) is neither linked to Greenpeace, nor this group (Pussy Riot),"said Putin. "I was not sorry that they (the Pussy Riot members) ended up behind bars. I was sorry that they were engaged in such disgraceful behaviour, which in my view was degrading to the dignity of women."
"They went beyond all boundaries."
