The three members of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, have said over and over again—as if it weren’t clear enough—that their anti-Putin punk prayer “Holy Shit” in a Russian Orthodox Church was a political act. Yet, Judge Marina Syrova agreed with the prosecutors and convicted the three women for the absurd charge of committing ”hooliganism – in other words, a grave violation of public order.”

No, a grave violation of the Putin status quo, buttressed by the pro-Putin propaganda movement orchestrated by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, in which Kirill called Vlad’s time as president and prime minister a “miracle of God.” Pussy Riot took exception and is now paying the price.

What this really means for Russia is that the Putin regime will go to extreme lengths to silence critics, and that Russia is afraid of intelligent women. That Pussy Riot’s message was political is unambiguous (read the lyrics and watch the performance below), and so the Russian government took advantage of the fact that the protest took place in a church to claim it was “religious hatred.”

Tolokonnikova said she was not “bitter about being jailed.” She added, “Politically, I am furious… Our imprisonment serves as a clear and unambiguous sign that freedom is being taken away from the entire country,” said Tolokonnikova through her lawyer on Twitter.