R.I.'s WaterFire shows support for jailed Russian band

By News staff PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- The Providence arts nonprofit WaterFire is displaying support for the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, whose members were convicted of hooliganism for their guerrilla performance denouncing President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral.

WaterFire added the band's new single, "Putin Lights Up The Fires," to the soundtrack for the art group's traditional lighting of the fires in Providence on Saturday night.

Volunteers donned the colored balaclava-like masks that are the punk band's trademark before they lit the fires from boats on the city's downtown rivers.

WaterFire founder Barnaby Evans said Pussy Riot's two-year prison sentence is "deeply disturbing."

He said WaterFire's effort is in solidarity with artistic freedom of expression and in protest of governments worldwide that seek to stifle it.