Members of the female punk band ''Pussy Riot'' (R-L) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina sit in a glass-walled cage after a court hearing in Moscow, August 17, 2012. 
 
 MOSCOW | 
 
 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three women from the Russian punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in jail on Friday for staging a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a church, a ruling supporters described as his "personal revenge". 
 
 The group's backers burst into chants of "Shame" outside the Moscow courthouse and said the case showed Putin was cracking down on dissent in his new six-year term as president. Dozens were detained by police when scuffles broke out. 
 
 The United States and the European Union condemned the sentence as disproportionate and asked for it to be reviewed, although state prosecutors had demanded a three-year jail term and the maximum sentence possible was seven years. 
 
 But while the women have support abroad, where their case has been taken up by a long list of celebrities including Madonna, Paul McCartney and Sting, opinion polls show few Russians sympathize with them. 
 
 "The girls' actions were sacrilegious, blasphemous and broke the church's rules," Judge Marina Syrova told the court as she spent three hours reading the verdict while the women stood watching in handcuffs inside a glass courtroom cage. 
 
 She declared all three guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, saying they had deliberately offended Russian Orthodox believers by storming the altar of Moscow's main cathedral in February to belt out a "punk prayer" deriding Putin. 
 
 Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, giggled as the judge read out the sentences one by one, but portrayed themselves as victims of Soviet-style persecution during the trial that began on July 30. 
 
 They have already been in jail for about five months, meaning they will serve another 19, and could be released if Putin were to pardon them. The Orthodox Church hinted it would not oppose such a move by appealing, belatedly, for mercy. 
 
 Pussy Riot took on two powerful state institutions at once when they burst into Moscow's golden-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral wearing bright ski masks, tights and short skirts to protest against Putin's close ties with the Church. 
 
 The judge said the three women had "committed an act of hooliganism, a gross violation of public order showing obvious disrespect for society." She rejected their argument that they had no intention of offending Russian Orthodox believers. 
 
 It became one of Russia's most high-profile trials since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Putin's critics said it put the 59-year-old Kremlin leader's policies in the dock. 
 
 Opponents depicted it as part of a crackdown by the ex-KGB spy against a protest movement that took off over the winter, attracting what witnesses said were crowds of up to 100,000 people in Moscow to oppose his return to power. 
 
 "They are in jail because it is Putin's personal revenge," Alexei Navalny, one of the organizers of the protests, said outside the court. "This verdict was written by Vladimir Putin." 
 
 A police source told Itar-Tass news agency 50 people had been detained near the court when scuffles broke out. Among them were Sergei Udaltsov, a leftist opposition leader, and Garry Kasparov, a Putin critic and former world chess champion. 
 
 But there was no sign of the opposition taking to the streets in anger. Opposition leaders plan a small gathering in Moscow on Sunday, the anniversary of a failed coup shortly before the Soviet Union fell in 1991, but the next big anti-Putin rally is not planned until September 15. 
 
 Putin's spokesman did not immediately comment on the verdict but the president's supporters said before the trial that he would have no influence on the court's decision. 
 
 Although Pussy Riot have never made a record or had a hit song, foreign singers have led the campaign for the trio's release. Madonna performed in Moscow with "PUSSY RIOT" painted on her back and wearing a ski mask in solidarity. 
 
 But a poll of Russians released by the independent Levada research group showed only 6 percent sympathized with the women and 51 percent found nothing good about them or felt irritation or hostility. The rest could not say or were indifferent. 
 
 Valentina Ivanova, 60, a retired doctor, said outside the courtroom: "What they did showed disrespect towards everything, and towards believers first of all." 
 
 CHURCH CALLS FOR MERCY 
 
 Putin, who returned to the presidency for a third term on May 7 after a four-year spell as prime minister, had said the women did "nothing good" but should not be judged too harshly. 
 
 The trio's defense lawyers said they would appeal. The Church issued a statement condemning the women's actions but urged the state to show mercy "within the framework of the law". 
 
 That appeared to signal that the Church would back a pardon or reduced sentence, although the women would be expected to admit guilt if they sought a pardon. 
 
 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington was concerned about the "disproportionate sentences ... and the negative impact on freedom of expression in Russia", and urged Russian authorities "to review this case". 
 
 EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the sentence called into question Russia's respect for the "obligations of fair, transparent, and independent legal process". 
 
 In protests outside Russia in support of Pussy Riot, a bare-chested feminist activist took a chainsaw to a wooden cross bearing a figure of Christ in Kiev. In Bulgaria, sympathizers put Pussy Riot-style masks on statues at a Soviet Army monument. 
 
 Opposition leaders say Putin will not ease up on opponents in his new term. Parliament has already rushed through laws increasing fines for protesters, tightening controls on the Internet, and imposing stricter rules on defamation. 
 
 Gay rights suffered a blow in Moscow when an appeals court upheld a ruling rejecting applications from activists to hold a gay rights march each year for the next 100 years. Anti-gay activists later sued Madonna for $10 million in St Petersburg, saying she insulted their feelings by speaking out for gay rights there last week. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya, Alissa de Carbonnel, Thomas Grove and Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Olzhas Auyezov in Kiev; Editing by Alastair Macdonald, Will Waterman and Giles Elgood) ||||| 1 of 3. Maria Alyokhina (C), a member of the female punk band ''Pussy Riot'', is escorted by police before a court hearing in Moscow, August 6, 2012. 
 
 MOSCOW | 
 
 MOSCOW (Reuters) - A state prosecutor on Tuesday demanded a three-year jail term for three women from punk band Pussy Riot, saying they had abused God when they burst into a Moscow cathedral and sang a "protest prayer" against the Russian Orthodox Church's close links to Vladimir Putin. 
 
 The protest performed on the cathedral altar, which led to the three being charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, outraged many Russian Orthodox believers. 
 
 But the case has caused an international outcry and focused attention on a crackdown on dissent since Putin returned to the presidency for a six-year term on May 7. 
 
 The European Union accused Russia on Tuesday of intimidation of judges and witnesses in the trial, and said the case breached international judicial standards. 
 
 Federal prosecutor Alexei Nikiforov dismissed the women's argument that their protest was not intended to offend believers and was aimed at highlighting the church's support for Putin. 
 
 "Using swear words in a church is an abuse of God," he said in closing arguments, watched by the women's lawyers, family and friends, packed into a tiny Moscow court. "The insult is not to Putin but to the social group of Orthodox Christian believers." 
 
 He said the actions clearly showed religious hatred and enmity and, deriding them as feminists who should be isolated from society, he added: "There was real mockery and humiliation directed at the people in the church." 
 
 Nikiforov did not press the court for the maximum seven-year sentence. Putin said last week that Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, had done "nothing good" but should not be judged too harshly. 
 
 But the prosecutor ignored pleas by the opposition and human rights groups not to seek jail terms over the profanity-laced protest, when the trio, wearing bright balaclavas and short dresses, burst into Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February and belted out a song urging the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin. 
 
 Pussy Riot, an all-women group, formed last October in protest against Putin's domination of Russia and his plan, now fulfilled, to return to the Kremlin. He could also seek another six-year term as president when his latest stint ends in 2018. 
 
 The defendants looked pale and tired as they sat silently in a metal and glass courtroom cage, two of them scribbling notes as they listened, before their turn came to address the court. 
 
 "I have the impression that we have not been listened to throughout the whole trial," said Tolokonnikova, her hair tied back with a flowered bandana, sounding confident and unbowed. 
 
 "WE ARE JESTERS" 
 
 "If we had put on dark balaclavas, someone could have mistaken us for bad people. But we are good people, friendly people who bring goodness and friendliness to the world ... We are jesters, clowns, maybe fools. We don't accept evil being done to anyone." 
 
 Defence lawyer Violetta Volkova said a jail sentence would be disproportionate and said: "These women are not here because they danced in a church. They are here because of their political beliefs." 
 
 The band members see themselves as part of a protest movement that last winter organised the biggest demonstrations since former KGB spy Putin first rose to power in 2000, at times attracting crowds in Moscow of 100,000. 
 
 "This is a nightmare. Blood is pouring from my ears," defence lawyer Nikolai Polozov said in a message on a social network site after the prosecutor's demand for jail terms. 
 
 In a country where few believe in the independence of the judiciary, the Kremlin could hope to win support among some of its critics if the sentences are relatively lenient. But this could offend church leaders demanding tough sentences. It is not clear when sentence will be passed but it could be this week. 
 
 A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Union officials were watching the trial closely. 
 
 "The EU is concerned about the reported irregularities related to this case," he said. "We are also worried by the reports of increasing intimidation, with pressure put on lawyers, on journalists and on possible witnesses." 
 
 Russian federal investigators said they had not received any official complaints about irregularities but that if they did, they would look into them. 
 
 The trio's protest also took aim at Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and infuriated church leaders who have described Putin's 12-year rule as a "miracle of God" and described the women as doing the work of the devil. 
 
 The protest upset Orthodox Christian believers for whom the Christ the Saviour Cathedral is a sacred place of worship and its pulpit a place reserved exclusively for priests. 
 
 The case has provided Putin, 59, with a chance to deepen his contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church, which has enjoyed a surge in support since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. 
 
 But the case has also angered many Russians, including some believers, who see the reaction of the state and church as disproportionate. A sentence that is seen by the public as too harsh would risk backfiring on the president and the clergy. 
 
 Opposition leaders say the trial is part of a wider crackdown intended to silence Putin's critics and which also includes tightening checks on foreign-funded lobby groups, new controls on the Internet and big fines for protesters. 
 
 (Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Pravin Char)
– A Russian judge today found three members of punk band Pussy Riot guilty of hooliganism driven by "religious hatred and enmity" and sentenced them to two years in prison, Reuters reports. Prosecutors had been seeking three years. The three were arrested in March after performing an anti-Putin "punk prayer" inside Moscow's main cathedral. The three women sat in a courtroom cage as the judge addressed the court for nearly three hours. Finally, two and a half hours after the band members were declared guilty, the sentence was read. Previously, the judge had been reading from a seemingly endless summary of the trial as participants and observers alike appeared to grow increasingly bored. From the Wall Street Journal's live blog: "One of the lawyers for Pussy Riot is blatantly flicking through a Twitter feed on her smartphone as the judge drones on."