Man arrested in support of Pussy Riot

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HELSINKI, Finland, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- A man in Finland was arrested after attempting to stage a punk protest in the style of Moscow's rock band Pussy Riot, a human rights activist said Wednesday.

Teivo Teivanen, head of the University of Helsinki's Political Science department, was charged with attempting to hinder religious rites, and other charges, after he and a group of masked girls were prevented from staging a protest rally and performance near Helsinki's Church of the Assumption, activist Johan Baeckman said.

Finnish laws prohibit attempts to interfere with religious ceremonies, wearing masks in public or holding unauthorized public events, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti said, noting the attempted protest was in support of the feminist collective Pussy Riot.

Three members of the punk band are currently on trial in Moscow for hooliganism, stemming from a spontaneous song performed in Moscow's Russian Orthodox cathedral in February that condemned what they claimed was church support for Vladimir Putin's presidential election campaign.