Reuters reports that Russia’s human rights “ombudsman,” Vladimir Lukin, said that prison sentences a Russian court handed down to three women from the punk band Pussy Riot were “excessive” and warned that the whole fiasco surrounding the trial is damaging Russian society.

The women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were convicted of hooliganism after performing an anti-President Vladimir Putin song on the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral and sentenced to two years in a prison colony. Lukin isn’t happy with the result:

“It is a misdemeanour that in a normal, civilised European state is handled in administrative rather than criminal proceedings. That’s why I think the ruling on those women is excessive,” he told a news conference when asked about the case. [...]

He said he hoped an appeals court would “more carefully consider all the aspects of this case” and that as ombudsman he had the right to challenge the verdict once it entered into force if he believed human rights had been violated.

“If the sentence remains the same … I will analyse this thoroughly,” he said.

Lukin said the situation is indicative of what is happening throughout Russia:

“It is regrettable that a poisonous substance of intolerance and brutality is spreading in our society. Recently it has become typical and even fashionable not to discuss problems but to lash about at one another,” Lukin said.

“The instinct for dialogue is fading and the fighting instinct is coming into the foreground. This is very dangerous.”

Putin has cracked down hard on dissent, approving new laws restricting public assembly and approving raids on anti-Putin activists’ homes. Russian Wikipedia recently went dark to protest increasing censorship and indeed, the Pussy Riot affair is by no means an isolated one.

Fox News today published the name of a U.S. Navy SEAL who led the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan last year that ended up in the al-Qaeda leader’s death. The SEAL under the pseudonym Mark Owen is the author of a book set to be released on Sept. 11 detailing the events of the raid. The book’s publisher says Owen “was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader’s hideout and was present at his death.”

Fox News said that “multiple sources” told the news outlet Owen’s real name but Fox did not provide any details about its decision to publish it. The book seemingly provides some clues as to the SEAL’s real identity as, according to the New York Times, Owen “recalls his childhood in Alaska.”

Defense Department, CIA and White House officials said they have not reviewed the content of Owen’s book and that they first heard of its existence from media reports. And as the Fox report publishing Owen’s name notes, he “could be exposing himself to legal trouble, as the Pentagon has not vetted the account“:

Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello, a Navy spokesman, said it’s possible [Owen] or any former service member could be punished for revealing national security secrets. “Any service member who discloses classified or sensitive information could be subject to prosecution — this doesn’t end when you leave the service,” Servello said. “There is nothing unique to the special warfare community in this regard.”

Current and former SEALs criticized Owen for speaking out. “How do we tell our guys to stay quiet when this guy won’t?” one SEAL told Fox while others reportedly called Owen a “traitor.”

Mother Jones’s Adam Weinstein notes that Justin Fishel, the Fox News reporter who revealed Owen’s name, also reported last year that the SEALs who participated in the bin Laden raid wanted to protect their identities out of concern for their safety. “There has been a consistent and effective effort to protect the identity of those that participated in the raid and I think that that has to continue,” Fishel reported then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying at the time.

The New York Times reported yesterday that a U.S. Navy SEAL who led the special operations team that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan last year has written a book describing the events in detail. The existence of the book, which is titled “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden,” has been a “closely held secret” within Penguin, the publishing house that is planning to release it next month on Sept. 11, and the SEAL is writing anonymously under the pseudonym Mark Owen.

But neither the author, nor Penguin, submitted the book to U.S. government officials for review, a normal process for publications divulging such highly classified information:

“As far as we can determine, this book was not submitted for pre-publication review,” said CIA spokesman Preston Golson.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said he was “unaware that anyone in the department has reviewed it.”

White House officials said they knew nothing of the book.

“We learned about this book today from press reports,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. “We haven’t reviewed it and don’t know what it says.”

The book’s publication could reignite the controversy surrounding national security leaks and the Washington Post notes that it’s unclear at this point “whether the CIA or Pentagon would take legal steps against the author or attempt to stop publication.”

However, Penguin is expecting the book to be a top seller and retailers agree. “This sort of book is too often what I call a F.I.P., flash in the pan, with good sales for a week or so after the initial publicity,” a book seller in Denver told the Times. “But this one may have legs into the holidays.”