Former Beatles member Paul McCartney on Wednesday (May 22) wrote a letter to Russian authorities in support of the jailed members of the anti-Putin punk rock group Pussy Riot.

Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, who was jailed over a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a Russian cathedral, declared a hunger strike after she was barred from a parole hearing.

She and bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are serving two-year prison terms for bursting into Moscow's main Russian Orthodox cathedral in February 2012 and singing a profanity-laced "punk prayer" urging the Virgin Mary: "Throw Putin out!"

McCartney published a letter on his website asking Russian authorities to consider releasing Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova on parole.

Western governments and many entertainers, including Madonna, said the sentence was disproportionate but Putin, a former KGB spy who has cultivated close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, said the state needed to protect the faithful.

One of the three women jailed, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was freed last October when a judge suspended her sentence on appeal after she argued she had been prevented from taking part in the protest because a guard seized her.

Tolokonnikova, 23, was denied parole last month and both she and Alyokhina have had requests for their sentences deferred until their young children are older rejected by courts. They are due for release next March.

Presented by Adam Justice