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Julia Ioffe is a former Moscow-based correspondent for The New Yorker she now lives in Washington, D.C.On Sunday, The New York Post published nude photos of Melania Trump, taken more than two decades ago when she was a professional model, under the cheeky headline "The Ogle Office." I imagine many subscribers were taken aback. "Our real goal is individual bravery," says Masha, "when each person decides, 'I'll go out onto the square-I can do it, even if it's cold, even if they'll arrest me.' That's how change begins." In it, Nadya and Masha appeared as witches (a reference to Russia's disdain for strong women) and called on demonstrators to protest the conviction of a prominent opposition leader. Pussy Riot's latest video in December railed against injustice, sexism, and, yes, Putin's crackdown on freedom of expression. Sometimes the report says 'suicide' or 'stroke,' but when you poke around, you find out they really died of police mistreatment." If seamstresses couldn't keep up? Some were made to sew naked.) Now, through Zona Prava, Nadya says, "we're looking into the deaths of people. (Where Nadya was held, women were forced to work in the sewing shop 16 to 17 hours a day, she reported in an open letter, getting only four hours of sleep at night one woman had to have her foot amputated because of such bad frostbite. They've also founded, along with Mediazona, Zona Prava to provide legal support to inmates and document abuse in Russian prisons, which are notoriously cruel to women. Nadya emerged shouting "Russia without Putin!" And since, they've been just as defiant as the day they were locked up, getting arrested a combined total of nine times, releasing two new protest videos, and speaking at multiple international events. That fearlessness was on display when the two got out of prison in December 2013. I didn't want to live like that I still don't want to live like that." Masha, who has a seven-year-old son, first ran up against the harsh Russian system in school: "Every student heard 'you're not normal' if their views didn't line up with the views of teachers and government," she says. What inspired them to take such a bold, public stand? "When I was four, my dad gave me an art history book," says Nadya her interest later led her to Moscow's radical Russian performance-art scene, where she met her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, with whom she has a six-year-old daughter. I sat in the packed, stuffy courtroom in the summer of 2012 when Nadya and Masha stood

It's something they know about all too well: Two and a half years ago, they were sent away to separate prisons. Called Mediazona, the agency focuses on monitoring and exposing abuses in the country's courts, prisons, and law enforcement agencies.

Today two of the founding members, Nadezhda "Nadya" Tolokonnikova, 25, and Maria "Masha" Alekhina, 26, are busy hiring investigative reporters for the news outlet they've started-a daring move in a country known for clamping down on independent journalism. At the time not many Americans had heard of their underground feminist group, but since then, Pussy Riot has become a global symbol of just how fierce girl power can get. In February 2012, five young women, faces obscured by colorful balaclavas, burst into a Moscow church, sang their "Punk Prayer," and denounced the imminent reelection of President Vladimir Putin, one of the most powerful men in the world. They're the public duo behind the Russian group Pussy Riot, and now they're launching an independent news service-and reminding us all to stand up for our beliefs.
