Pussy Riot member surfaces in Siberian prison hospital
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. The group has bravely revealed Russia’s judicial intimidation, religious hypocrisy and political thuggery.
News of jailed Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova apparently surfaced after she was incommunicado for 26 days.
The husband of the Russian band member said she was being held in a prison hospital in Siberia.
Tolokonnikova, 24, was undergoing tests for tuberculosis at the Tuberculosis Hospital No. 1 in Krasnoyarsk, according to reports.
“Tolokonnikova has arrived in the Krasnoyarsk region, where she will be serving a part of her term,” the Interfax news agency quoted Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin as saying.
However, her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told the BBC that she did not have the disease.
Tolokonnikova apparently told her husband conditions at the hospital were much better the penal colony in Mordovia where she was being held earlier.
More from GlobalPost: Pussy Riot member 'missing' since transfer to new prison
She went on a hunger strike earlier this fall after a Russian court rejected her appeal. She was moved to a medical unit in October and hadn't been heard from since.
Tolokonnikova had accused guards of mistreating her and denying her drinking water. She noted "slavery-like" conditions in which she worked 16 to 17 hours per day.
Tolokonnikova and two of her fellow Pussy Riot members were sentenced to two years in jail last year for playing an anti-Putin concert in Moscow cathedral.
The band was charged with hooliganism inspired by religious hatred.
One of the band members was released last October after appealing the court decision.
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