The eight-day trial against three members of the feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot, charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after they performed a punk prayer in an Orthodox church, asking  the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin, wrapped up Wednesday. The prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence and the verdict will be announced Friday August 17th.

The trial was a major miscalculation for the Russian Government. It has shed light on a struggle between  a repressive regime of censorship  on the one hand and martyrs for freedom, free speech and artistic expression, on the other. The defendants themselves linked their persecution to that of Soviet-era writers in their closing statements.  Standing in front of ...