MOSCOW, 28 September - RAPSI. The Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI) will host live text coverage of the hotly anticipated Pussy Riot appeal Monday October 1 from Moscow City Court, starting at 10:45am local time (GMT + 3).

Domestic and international audiences alike were transfixed by this summer's hooliganism trial of three members of Russian punk rock collective Pussy Riot. The case - which pitted free speech against religious sanctity - attracted heated controversy worldwide and drew in advocates from both sides of the spectrum.

Judge Marina Syrova decision on August 17 to convict members Natalia Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich of hooliganism and sentenced them to two years in a prison colony stoked the flames, provoking a number of Western politicians and international organizations to question human rights and the Rule of Law in Russia. 

Group members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich remained in pretrial detention since their early March arrest for an incident that some have lauded as a valid exercise of free speech, and that others have lambasted as blasphemous. Group members face up to seven years in prison.

On February 21, five girls wearing brightly colored balaclavas stormed the altar of downtown Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral to perform an anti-Putin protest song entitled, “Holy Sh*t.”