When Pussy Riot, the Russian punk band were recently sentenced to two years in prison, authorities hoped it would send a clear message to opponents of Vladimir Putin… step out of line and you will be punished. But as Evan Williams reports out of Moscow, despite an increasingly harsh crackdown, the protesters are refusing to be silenced. 

REPORTER:  Evan Williams

PUSSY RIOT, SONG (Translation):  Virgin Mary, Mother of God, drive Putin away! Drive Putin away! 

It was a performance designed to provoke. The punk feminists of Pussy Riot unleashing mayhem in Moscow's holiest cathedral, lambasting the church's open support for Vladimir Putin in the last election. 

PUSSY RIOT, SONG (Translation):  Crap, crap, Holy crap!  Crap, crap, Holy crap!

PUSSY RIOT: Women are fed up with the sexist regime with religion at the same time, with religion at the same time.  

PUSSY RIOT (Translation):  The central concept was an appeal to the Mother of God, because she is seen as a special protector of Russia. So this was a prayer to the Virgin, asking her to drive Putin away and change our political system. 

PUSSY RIOT: We can show it is not so scary to do something and that actions are changing the situation. 

But soon after this interview, Pussy Riot paid a heavy price.  Three of its members were arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism. They've admitted to what they called an ethical error but say they committed no crime. 

VIOLETTA VOLKOVA, LAWYER (Translation):  they are not prepared to repent for the things they didn’t do. They are not prepared to say they are guilty when they are not. But they are prepared to serve the term.

Violetta Volkova is a lawyer working with Pussy Riot. Today she's off to see the three defendants in the detention centre where they're being held on remand. Unless there's a breakthrough in their appeal soon, they're due to be shifted to prison where their safety could be in danger.  

VIOLETTA VOLKOVA (Translation):  There is word on the grapevine that they are expected there. I mean in the bad sense of the word, there are women there at the penal colonies who have committed serious felonies and who have already been worked on by the local management and propaganda.  So anything might happen and we are very worried about them.  This is the detention centre where the girls are kept.

Violetta says the girls could apply for presidential clemency but they prefer captivity to losing their self-respect. 

VIOLETTA VOLKOVA (Translation):  I think we are talking about nascent totalitarianism in Russia. All the human rights institutions you can think of are broken, the constitution is dead, the President no longer upholds it. 

Pussy Riot has made many headlines in the West with their anti-Putin activities but there are many more opposition people here in Russia that we don't hear about and we're on our way to see one of them now. 

CROWD (Translation):  Capitalism is shit! Capitalism is shit! Capitalism is shit!

Sergei Fomchenkov is a key organiser of the Communist Other Russia party. The government refuses to allow the party to register, so they're excluded from any real political role. 

SERGEI FOMCHENKOV, COMMUNIST OTHER RUSSIA PARTY (Translation):  Well, in reality this is not the core of our work because these legal marches held on the back streets and embankments they are not… they don’t solve anything.

CROWD (Translation):  We need a different Russia! We need a different Russia!

Marches like these may be tolerated but he says party activists are constantly harassed by the state. 

CROWD (Translation):  Russia is everything, the rest is nothing.

Last month, at a retrial, Sergei’s wife Taisiya was sentenced to eight years in jail on charges of drug dealing. Police had allegedly found heroin during a search of her home. The sentence was double what prosecutors had demanded. 

SERGEI FOMCHENKOV (Translation):  I think they want to frighten the others, the people around us, the people who might follow us. “Don’t oppose the regime or you will suffer. You can be killed or jailed for years. Your life, career and family will be ruined.”  It is a scare message “Don’t you ever fight the regime.”

Taisiya claims the drugs were planted because she refused to give evidence against her husband. Suffering acute diabetes, she might not live to see her family again.  

SERGEI FOMCHENKOV (Translation):  For Taisiya, eight years are a death sentence, given her condition, she won’t survive eight years in a camp. Those who made that decision know this, so it is a legal form of murder.  So it is very hard for us, it is a serious matter, but it can’t really affect my political stance. Both Taisiya and I knew the score.  Somebody has to do it, if no one does, scoundrels will rule us forever.

SVETLANA SIDORKINA, LAWYER (Translation):  The court refuses to recognise the argument of the defence. They would not admit any arguments presented by the defence during the hearing.

Svetlana Sidorkina is one of Taisiya’s lawyers. She says the case is a glaring example of state persecution. 

SVETLANA SIDORKINA (Translation):  I think that political motives were the real reason, that her husband’s activities were the reason she was charged with a criminal offence, they ignored the state of her health and the fact that the charges changed. And that is very sad. That is how it is done in Russia.  

ILYA YASHIN:  I don't want to keep this situation for my future child. 

Ilya Yashin is one of a new generation of Russians fighting what they see as a return to authoritarian repression. 

ILYA YASHIN (Translation):   We just want to live in a normal free country - two thirds of our population currently live on a minimum wage, that is, on or below the poverty line. We have a huge gap between the very rich – who buy yachts and football clubs in England and the rest who can barely make ends meet in our rich country.

A leading activist in the Liberal Democratic movement, Solidarnost, he has already spent weeks in prison and faces more criminal charges.  

ILYA YASHIN (Translation):  Anyone opposing the authorities, even if one’s position is moderate at some point will feel the pressure of the whole state system. There’ll be problems at work and at uni, he might get robbed or face criminal charges, he can be jailed for 10 days or for two years.  And every year the screws of the political regime get tighter.  The more people become unhappy with the regime, the harsher its reaction gets.

REPORTER:  Why is the government so oppressive? What are they worried about? They've got control, what are they worried about?  

ILYA YASHIN (Translation):  Putin is not an idiot, we have fresh historical examples before our eyes where regimes have fallen like houses of cards, in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, the current civil war in Syria.  Putin knows all too well that this apparent monolith of power can break into tiny shards like a piece of china.

Ilya invites me to a closed door meeting of activists determined to push back against what they see as a growing police state. I'm briefly allowed to film as they discuss plans for a major opposition rally against the Russian President.  

SERGEI FOMCHENKOV (Translation):  The clearly unacceptable options offered to us we are not even going to discuss, we refuse them straight away.

Gathered in this room, a cross-section of some of the most important opposition figures in Russia today. If political change does come, these will be key players. 

The next day I'm called to the Public Investigations Committee, the equivalent of the State Prosecutor's Office. Pussy Riot's lead lawyer Mark Feigin has been summoned for questioning over his appearance at the recent anti-Putin rally.  I caught up with him when he emerged three hours later. 

REPORTER:  So no charge Mark, they're not going to charge you?  

MARK FEIGIN, LAWYER (Translation):  No, no…no charges. But I was questioned closely about the record and about my speech.  What was I saying?   Why was I saying it?  How did I say it?  What was it? Who told me what?  Who didn’t speak?  As if the charges were waiting to be laid.  

It is a political case, political pressure. The regime always resorts to that when it has to force someone to do something. So I think it is definitely linked to the Pussy Riot case.

Violetta has also been ordered in for questioning. 

VIOLETTA VOLKOVA (Translation):  I think the government wants to avoid a scandal and is trying to remove a popular lawyer who is not afraid to speak the truth.  On the one hand, it is pressure applied to the Pussy Riot case. They want me to think what might happen to me.  

The state's heavy-handed response to these punk performances has achieved more than Pussy Riot could ever have dreamt of, galvanising the opposition movement with a mixture of political protest and artistic expression. 

In a dilapidated Moscow building, I'm off to meet a young artist planning a controversial exhibition inspired by the band's treatment.

EUGENYA MALTSEVA, ARTIST:  Hello. 

REPORTER:  Hello, how are you? 

EUGENYA MALTSEVA:  Hi, how are you? 

REPORTER:  I'm very good. 

Eugenya Maltseva painted these portraits of Pussy Riot as religious icons, as a statement of support. 

EUGENYA MALTSEVA (Translation):  For me, first of all, they symbolise freedom. They spoke the kind of truth that people have been trying to avoid for quite a long time.

REPORTER:   When you say free, does it mean free then? 

EUGENYA MALTSEVA (Translation):  In general.  Well it has many meanings, this text on the painting - it speaks of freedom in general… of personal freedom, freedom of choice.  

The gallery owner Victor Bodarenko is going to put the works on show. It's risky, angering those in power in Russia, but he says it's important. 

VICTOR BODARENKO, GALLERY OWNER:  Because I think in today's Russia artists, society should take a certain position and they have to speak out. Do they want to go back to the times when we were told what length of skirts to wear, what length of hair to wear? What songs are good, what songs are bad? What books you should read? I think the artistic society should take a position.  

But Eugenya’s potent mix of art, anarchy and religion was too much for some.  

MAN (Translation):  One after another they stage deliberate actions against the Russian Orthodox Church to destabilise the social and political situation in Russia, to deliberately offend our religious feelings.  

When the exhibition got under way, it was disrupted by the Orthodox protesters, nine of whom were arrested. 

ILYA YASHIN (Translation):  Putin has to go! 

When I next catch up with Ilya, he is leading the big protest that's being planned. 

CROWD (Translation):  We are the authority here!   We are the authority here!

100,000 people taking to the streets of Moscow to call for change. 

CROWD (Translation):  Down with the police state!

Different groups from across the political spectrum left and right, united by one message – that Putin has to go.  

ILYA YASHIN (Translation):  we want change here, we want reform, we want a turnover and political competition. We want a social state, a normal European country. Many people support us. 

CROWD (Translation):   The police are with the people! Don’t serve the creeps!

Among the crowd I found an unexpected protester. Gennady Gudkov is a former KGB officer and was a senior member of parliament. He had just been stripped of his elected seat for helping organise rallies like this and blocking laws aimed at suppressing the opposition. 

REPORTER:   You have lost your position, what does it say about what's happening in today's Russia? 

GENNADY GUDKOV, FORMER KGB OFFICER (Translation):  It says only that the regime is nervous. They are making mistakes, it’s fear.  They are uncertain of themselves so they are trying not to enter into discussions, not to have open dialogue, but rather to intimidate us. That says they are weak and weakening.

Pussy Riot loomed large over the rally and a lawyer Mark Feigin was here to tell them what he thinks their arrest really means.  

MARK FEIGIN (Translation):  There are many opinions on their fate and the outcome of the trial. The street has to become our court! This is the only way we can achieve change in Russia!

Given Putin's grip on power though, I asked Mark what this kind of rally can really achieve. 

MARK FEIGIN (Translation):  This is the part of our society that serves as a high-explosive projectile. It has to make a breach that the rest of our society will rush through, those who are a bit more passive and fearful, a bit more careless of their civil rights. Somebody has to provide a ram and the people here are that ram.  The regime will fall. Nothing lasts forever