Yoko Ono, widow of the Beatles star John Lennon, is set to give a peace prize in the couple's name to the Russian female punk band Pussy Riot on Friday, rights group Amnesty International said.
The biennal LennonOno Grant For Peace will be presented to Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the three band members jailed after a controversial trial last month for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's largest church.
Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were sentenced to two years each after being found guilty of "hooliganism aimed at inciting religious hated."
Friday's awards ceremony in New York, backed by Amnesty International, comes just 10 days before the trio's case comes up for appeal.
The band have also been nominated for the European Parliament's Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, named after Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
As well as Pussy Riot, the LennonOno award will also be given to four others, including U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, and the late writer Christopher Hitchens.
