Two members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot have been freed from prison early under new amnesty law, the BBC reports.
An earlier report erroneously pegged their release date to Dec. 19, but Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were in fact released on Monday, Dec. 23.
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The two women, along with third band member Ekaterina Samutsevich, were jailed in August 2012 after performing a protest punk concert in the main Moscow cathedral in February.
They were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred." Samutsevich was released in October 2012, while the other two were due to be released in March 2014.
The new amnesty law, passed by Russia's parliament and signed by Russia's president Vladimir Putin, gave amnesty to some 20,000 prisoners, mostly first-time offenders, minors and mothers with small children. The law coincides with the 20th anniversary of the adoption of Russia's constitution.
As Tolokonnikova left the prison hospital in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, she shouted "Russia without Putin," claiming the amnesty law was nothing but a "PR exercise."
"If I had a choice to refuse [the amnesty], I would have, without a doubt," she said.
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