MOSCOW -- A founding member of the Pussy Riot protest group in Moscow, Maria Alyokhina, has been handed another 15 days in jail right after she served a similar jail term.
Alyokhina was expected to be released on March 14, but instead of letting her go home, a Moscow court sent her back to jail for another 15 days for "refusal to follow orders to move from one cell to another while in jail."
She was detained on February 28 and sentenced to 15 days in jail on a charge of disobeying police, which Alyokhina denied.
On February 8, Alyokhina was sentenced to 15 days in jail over an Instagram post in 2015, which a Moscow court found as "inciting hatred."
That post showed three girls in hijabs, one of whom had "VODKA DUDKA ISLAM" written on her clothes.
In September, a Moscow court found Alyokhina guilty of violating restrictive measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus by calling on people to protest against the detention of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.
She was then sentenced to one year of so-called "restricted freedom," a parole-like sentence, which she called politically motivated.