Members of feminist punk band Pussy Riot have likened Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers to the condition of Russian prisoners.

Maria Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova drew the parallels during their panel discussion at Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas, The Guardian reports.

“We were surprised by the problems here, such as detention camps, which are similar to what is happening in Russia,” Tolokonnikova told an audience in Sydney.

The pair responded to calls for them to boycott the festival over links between its co-organisers at the St James Ethics Centre and the federal government’s asylum seeker strategy.

Instead of refusing to attend, speaking at the Sydney Opera House festival would hopefully bring attention to the topic, they said.

The members also called on Australia to withdraw its invitation to President Vladimir Putin to attend this year’s G20 summit.

“We think that this person has no place at the G20,” Alyokhina said.

When Prime Minister Tony Abbott addressed calls for Putin to be excluded from the G20 on Friday, he said it was weighing on his mind.

“It’s not a decision which Australia really has a right to make unilaterally,” he told reporters.

Both Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova spent 22 months in jail after staging a protest performance in a Moscow cathedral in 2012.

But the women said the situation in Russia was so repressive they would not be able to repeat their cathedral performance.

Since their imprisonment, the women have campaigned to defend the rights of prisoners.