A Russian court's two-year sentence for Pussy Riot is to be condemned and your article reminded us why ("Pussy Riot trial gives Russia 'the image of medieval dictatorship'", News).

But we British forget how our own government and judiciary routinely (over)react when establishment icons are insulted and protest gets too raunchy. Charlie Gilmour (son of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour) was sentenced by Judge Nicholas Price to an equally excessive 16 months in prison for (possibly) throwing a bin at a royal car and climbing on the Cenotaph. He admitted to being on drugs, but Pussy Riot may have been too; other, so-called rioters were treated equally harshly a few months later.

How would the establishment or, indeed, ordinary people, have reacted to a band singing "f*** the Queen" from the altar of St Paul's? Outrage? Calls for exemplary sentencing? Britain can be neanderthal, too.

Richard Woolley

Pickering

North Yorks

I know that terminology is all here but, even allowing for journalistic excess, to describe Pussy Riot as "a bunch of bright sassy women" and their actions as blowing "the lid off Putin's Russia" is committing a crime not only against the English language but also to denigrate the actions of other protesters who took to the streets of Moscow after the elections in the spring. They could equally be described as a "bunch of masked hooligans". The colour is immaterial. Does Carole Cadwalladr believe that people were unaware of what happened in Russia? I fear that she and the celebrity chattering classes seem to have clambered aboard a very rickety bandwagon.

Yes, we should condemn the way that the elections were handled but also not forget that progress has been made in the democratisation of Russia.

Ordinary people don't know what all the fuss is about and I suspect will not understand or care, frankly, what Macca or Madge think.

Trevor Woolley

Huddersfield

It's a no-brainer in choosing between Pussy Riot and Putin or Private Bradley Manning and Obama ("Putin must show clemency to Pussy Riot", leading article). Yet for our chattering classes, America's first non-white president can do no wrong. So forget about Manning's plight and concentrate on Putin's shortcomings. It's called displacement activity.

Yugo Kovach

Winterborne Houghton

Dorset

I applaud the Russian authorities for convicting Pussy Riot – the very name suggesting sex and violence – of committing a hate crime against religion. The all-girl punk band wilfully, maliciously and blasphemously desecrated a Russian Orthodox church.

Everyone has a right to freedom of expression. This includes those who were attending the religious service in question. These people's rights were obviously denied and violated by the surprise guerrilla invasion. Many of them, especially the older and religiously devout, may actually have been seriously traumatised for life by the devilish antics of these young, radical feminists.

I believe a two-year jail sentence is rather harsh for such a crime. I would rather have seen the girls forced to faithfully attend Holy Mass each day followed by an hour of Bible school – perhaps for a year.

In this way, their punishment could be served out in the form of rehabilitation. If the girls were encouraged to understand religion a little more they might actually come to appreciate it more fully. Then their raw and wicked energy could be converted into a more positive and powerful force for good in this world.

Rick Martin

Bristol