Pussy Riot activist Rita Flores disappears after being detained by Moscow police

Pussy Riot activist Rita Flores has stopped answering phone calls after her apartment was searched and she herself was detained by the Moscow police.

Her follow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina told Meduza that, earlier on February 17, Flores told her lawyer Daniil Berman about the apartment search, and that she herself was in custody at the local detectives’ office. Flores did not explain the reasons for the search and detention, but told Berman that her phone was being taken away.

Berman went to the address Flores gave him, but the detectives turned him away, saying they didn’t have any detainees. The phone number from which Flores called Berman has now blocked incoming calls from the attorney. His client’s current location is unknown.

Rita Flores has been arrested in the past. In the summer 2021 she spent 30 days in custody, after being charged with posting Nazi symbols on Instagram. In March 2022, she said she had been detained in Minsk, and forced to record a video in praise of the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

In 2021–2022, several Pussy Riot activists left Russia because of persecution. Rita Flores is currently a witness in the criminal case against Mediazona publisher Pyotr Verzilov, charged with disinformation under the new Russian law against “fake news.”