A judge has suspended the jail sentence for one of the three activists whose "punk prayer" at a Moscow cathedral made them international symbols of democratic resistance to the increasingly autocratic rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yekaterina Samutsevich was freed after an appeal of the sentences handed down to all three women for their protest performance. The judge suspended Samutsevich's sentence because she had been thrown out of the cathedral by guards before the performance took place.

But the two-year prison terms for bandmates Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were confirmed. The challenge now is to keep up the pressure until all of these brave women are freed.

Sources: Al Jazeera, Avaaz