Russian police yesterday temporarily detained six activists protesting against the incarceration of punk rockers Pussy Riot and charged them with breaking rules on demonstrations.

Activists, actors and writers took turns holding posters demanding freedom for jailed band members Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, to comply with rules on one-person demonstrations that do not require permits.

The Moscow protest was timed to take place on International Women’s Day, a holiday in Russia.

Russian media reported that police stepped in to make arrests when more than one person at a time held posters in support of the women, who are serving two-year sentences on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

Moscow police said the six people detained at the protest in front of the Federal Penitentiary Service building were charged with administrative misdemeanours for breaking the one-person protest law. They were all were released and handed orders for court hearings on Monday.

US pop star Madonna and Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi are among those who have called for the two jailed Pussy Riot members to be freed.

They were convicted in August after performing, balaclava-clad, an anti-Kremlin “prayer” early last year at Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral.

Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, the third member of the band who was jailed but released in October, also joined the protest yesterday, said the street-art collective Voina (War).

Russian media reported Tolokonnikova submitted a request for early release this week. Alyokhina’s request has already been refused.

Asked on Thursday whether the two should be paroled, President Vladimir Putin declined comment.

“It’s not up to me, but it is a thing of procedures and applicable legislation,” Putin said. In October, he called the Pussy Riot sentencing fair.