By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Russian anti-Kremlin feminist punk band 'Pussy Riot' was designated an extremist organisation by a Moscow court on Monday, banning its activities inside Russia as part of a wider crackdown on dissenting voices.
The ruling, announced by Moscow's court service, was made at a closed-door court hearing at the request of the General Prosecutor's Office.
The band's exiled members have spoken out against Moscow's war in Ukraine, and in September a court handed them jail sentences in absentia of up to 13 years each after convicting them of telling lies about the Russian army.
The group, whose members have been labelled as "foreign agents" by the authorities, rejected the charges at the time, saying they were politically motivated.
Monday's ruling - which now sees the group share a designation with the likes of the Jehovah's Witnesses and the political organisation of late opposition politician Alexei Navalny - will make it easier for the authorities to go after the band's supporters inside Russia or people who have worked with them in the past if they want to.
It could also potentially make the group's dealings with Western financial institutions more difficult.
A spokesperson for the group did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
'THREAT TO STATE SECURITY'
Providing a motivation for their request to brand the group as extremist, prosecutors cited two of its past high-profile actions which they cast as a threat to state security, according to the TASS news agency.
One of the incidents cited was a musical protest the group staged against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral in 2012, which Orthodox believers said was sacrilegious and which brought the band to global prominence.
The other was the group's brief soccer pitch invasion - dressed as police officers - during the 2018 World Cup at Moscow's main stadium in front of Putin, an action the group said at the time was to promote free speech.
Leonid Solovyev, a lawyer for the band, was cited last month by TASS as saying that the group's actions had been "ironic" and not aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order.
Last month, group founder Nadya Tolokonnikova, who has recently been performing in the United States and whose arrest the Russian authorities are seeking, shrugged off the move to designate the group as extremist.
"If telling the truth is extremism, then we are happy to be extremists," she wrote on X.
(Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Gareth Jones)
