February 22, 2023

Another Activist Goes M.I.A.


Another Activist Goes M.I.A.
Members of Pussy Riot in 2012. Wikimedia Commons, Denis Bochkarev.

Rita Flores, a member of the well-known feminist protest group Pussy Riot, went offline shortly after Moscow police raided her apartment.

Fellow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina revealed that Flores contacted her lawyer, Daniil Berman, while in custody at the local investigator's office. Flores did not provide an explanation for the raid but mentioned that her phone was confiscated.

When Berman visited Flores' apartment, he was turned away by officers, who claimed that there were no detainees. The phone number Flores used to contact Berman has since blocked him, and her current location is unknown.

Flores' detainment is not an isolated incident. Since Pussy Riot emerged with their anti-Putin protests and radical punk performances over a decade ago, authorities have attempted to silence their voices. Flores has repeatedly been detained. In 2021, she was sentenced to 30 days in jail for posting images of dissent on Instagram.

More recently, she was detained in March 2022 and forced to record a video in support of Alexander Lukashenko

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