A clothing company has donated around £350 from the sales of a new T-shirt to help the imprisoned punk band Pussy Riot.
Three members of the Russian group were jailed for two years after singing a protest song against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour church.
The decision sparked condemnation across the world and a legal defence fund was set up to support their bid for freedom.
Vasco Wackrill is co-owner and director of redmolotov.com, based at The Watermark, in Ribbleton Lane, Preston, which produces original satirical, pop culture and political clothing.
The company decided to make a ‘Free Pussy Riot’ T-shirt, depicting a ‘feminist fist’ with a pink print on a navy blue T-shirt, and donated all the profits to the cause.
He said: “We try and do things with either a message or a sort of literary meaning behind it. It’s not just fashion - we are trying to put something across with our designs.
“A lot of our customers approached us, asking us to do Pussy Riot T-shirts when they were imprisoned. We were not comfortable at first doing one to make profit, but it occurred to us we could do one and donate all the profits to the legal fund.”
Vasco, 37, from Preston, said the T-shirt became an immediate hit and was the firm’s best-selling line for a fortnight.
He said: “It seems to have captured people’s imagination.
“What we do requires freedom of speech and freedom of expression because a lot of the slogans we use are controversial, or if not controversial, have a message behind them.
“Not everybody might agree with them as we’re critical of government, of bankers, and we do some socialist and anarchist stuff.
“We can obviously relate to people being locked up for what was essentially a political protest.”
One jailed member of the band, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was unexpectedly freed on Wednesday.
An appeal judge ruled her sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of the cathedral before she could take part in the performance.
But Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s had their convictions of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred upheld and were sent to a penal colony.
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