MOSCOW, August 3 - RAPSI. Hollywood actor Danny DeVito has urged the Russian authorities to release the Pussy Riot members accused of hooliganism at the Christ the Savior Cathedral and who have been in custody for almost six months.

"Mr Putin... Pussy Riot...set 'em free...," the actor wrote in his Twitter

On February 21, five girls wearing brightly colored balaclavas stormed the altar of Christ the Savior Cathedral in downtown Moscow to perform an anti-Putin protest song they called "Holy Sh*t." The video with their performance was posted in the Internet and incited a major public uproar.

Group members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich have been in pretrial detention since their arrest in early March for an incident that some have lauded as a valid exercise of free speech, and that others have condemned as blasphemous. The women face up to seven years in prison.
The court extended their arrest until January 2013.