There will be some political intrigue at Roskilde Festival this year after its organisers announced that two members of the Russian feminist activist group Pussy Riot will be attending the festival this year.
On July 5 at 17:30 on the Gloria Stage, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina – who spent approximately 21 months in prison from March 2012 until December 2013 for orchestrating a punk happening in the largest Orthodox church in Moscow – will speak to festival guests about their cause and experiences in Putin-led Russia.
The festival has also decided to donate 300,000 kroner to the two Russian women’s newly established NGO, Zona Prava [Zone of Rights], which aims to monitor conditions in Russian prisons and focus on the suppression of human rights.
“Roskilde Festival has a longstanding tradition of focusing on human rights,” Christina Bilde, the festival’s spokesperson, said in a press release. “So it’s only natural that the festival backs the two activists and their work with a donation.”
“The two artists and political activists have gathered some personal experiences after they’ve been stripped of their artistic freedoms and civil rights.”
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As part of their trip to Denmark, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina are also scheduled to visit some Danish prisons and meet with Danish human rights advocates and politicians.
Last week, Roskilde Festival revealed that it had sold all of its 80,000 full-week tickets, although there are still some one-day passes available for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.