Jailed Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova taken to hospital
Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova raises her first before a court hearing in Moscow on August 8, 2012.
Jailed Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been taken to a prison hospital after complaining of “severe headaches,” the Guardian reported Friday.
The 22-year-old is one of two members of the Russian feminist rock band serving a two-year sentence for an anti-Putin protest in Moscow’s main cathedral last year.
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Federal Prison Service spokeswoman Kristina Belousova confirmed to the Associated Press that Tolokonnikova was in the hospital in Mordovia province, in western Russia, where her jail is located.
Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told Sky News that his wife was undergoing tests to determine whether existing health problems were being exacerbated by the work she is required to do in prison sewing clothes for the country’s special forces.
"Everything is based around eight-hour working shifts and it's not clear whether, for example, her headaches that she has are influenced by these long shifts," Verzilov said.
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Three members of Pussy Riot were convicted last year of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. One of the members, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released in October on a suspended sentence.
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