Tag Archives: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is in Siberian Hospital, Not Penal Colony

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is at a hospital in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, her husband told Rolling Stone today.

After more than three weeks of no contact, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova finally spoke to his wife who is in Krasnoyarsk’s Tuberculosis Hospital No. 1. Tolokonnikova does not have tuberculosis.

“She was in good condition. She said her conditions were OK,” Verzilov told Rolling Stone. “She’s not sick right now, she’s just having procedures and tests related to the hunger strike.”

Tolokonnikova told her husband that during the past three-plus weeks that she’s been out of sight, she wasn kept from having contact with the outside world.

“She said conditions and treatment were OK,” Verzilov said, “but that the one thing was she was in very strict isolation.”

Russian authorities have not revealed where Tolokonnikova will serve the remainder of her sentence, although Verzilov told Rolling Stone he had been told that she might remain at the hospital.

Head to Rolling Stone for more.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Moved To Siberian Prison

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Russian officials have revealed the location of imprisoned Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in a statement released Tuesday by Russia’s human rights ombudsmen Vladimir Lukin.

The statement said Tolokonnikova will be transferred to a prison colony in the Siberian province of Krasnoyarsk. She is already there.

“Tolokonnikova has arrived in the Krasnoyarsk region, where she will be serving a part of her term,” the Interfax news agency quoted Lukin as saying. “I have been told that, according to her wishes, she has been placed [in the penal colony’s] medical ward.”

As previously reported, Tolokonnikova’s husband Peter Verzilov told Rolling Stone on November 6 that he believed his wife was headed for Penal Colony 50, near the town of Nizhny Ingash, which is 190 miles from the city of Krasnoyarsk. This prison is in a much more remote location than Penal Colony No 14 in Mordovia, where Tolokonnikova was previously held. It is about 2600 miles from Moscow. Prison management havem thus far, not confirmed that Tolokonnikova is in Penal Colony No. 50.

Lukin said that Tolokonnikova has ended her prison strike, and that new prisoners are placed in quarantine for 10 days on arrival and she will be able to see her husband and lawyers within the week.

It has been more than three weeks since Tolokonnikova’s family or lawyers have been in contact with her.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova “Missing” For 20 Days

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Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been out of contact with her family and her lawyer for 20 days, according to Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov.

The location of Tolokonnikova remains a mystery. She was removed from Penal Colony No. 14 in Mordovia on October 21, and has been inaccessible to her family and legal representatives ever since.

Russia’s Federal Penal Service (FSIN) said in a statement released to Interfax Friday that Tolokonnikoca is still on her way to a new penal colony. Inerfax is a Moscow-based non-governmental news agency.

In the statement, the FSIN claims that Tolokonnikova is in satisfactory health and that “no complaints have come from her.”

“May we reiterate that,” the FSIN statement said, “under Article 17 of the Penalty Enforcement Code of the Russian Federation, the administration of [the penal colony] will notify only one relative of the convict (to be chosen by the latter) about her arrival at the institution, and will do so no later than within 10 days of her arrival.”

Amnesty International has demanded that Russian authorities immediately disclose where they are holding Tolokonnikova.

Last Tuesday (Nov. 5, 2013) Verzilov told Rolling Stone that his wife was being transferred to a prison in the city of Krasnoyarsk, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, in the heart of Siberia.

“It’s 100 percent that it’s Krasnoyarsk region,” Verzilov told Rolling Stone during a phone interview. The information came from a source in Russia’s prison administration, Verzilov said.

Verzilov said he believed his wife was headed for Colony 50, near the town of Nizhny Ingash, which is 190 miles from the city of Krasnoyarsk. This prison is in a much more remote location than Penal Colony No. 14.

On Thursday however, The Daily Beast called the prison and was told Tolokonnikova was not there. “An unindentified woman at the prison, who answered The Daily Beast’s phone call, told reporters that ‘Tolokonnikova is not being kept at #50,’ The Daily Beast reported.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Headed For Siberian Prison

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is being transferred to a prison in the city of Krasnoyarsk, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, in the heart of Siberia, according to her husband, Peter Verzilov.

“It’s 100 percent that it’s Krasnoyarsk region,” Verzilov told Rolling Stone during a phone interview. The information came from a source in Russia’s prison administration, Verzilov said.

Tolokonnikova’s husband believes his wife is headed for Colony 50, near the town of Nizhny Ingash, which is 190 miles from the city of Krasnoyarsk. This prison is in a much more remote location than Penal Colony No 14 in Mordovia, where Tolokonnikova was previously held.

“I think it could be a kind of revenge for what she has done,” Pavel Chikov, a rights defender and a close advisor to Tolokonnikova told Rolling Stone. “It will definitely cause a lot of trouble — it’s definitely not the most convenient place in the Russian Federation.”

Tolokonnikova has not been seen since October 20th when she disappeared from Colony 14.

On Sunday the Russian prison service told Interfax news agency that Tolokonnikova has been moved to another prison. This is the third prison that the Pussy Riot member has been in.

The Federal Penitentiary Service also said that Tolokonnikova’s family would be notified within ten days of her arrival at the new prison, per “regulations.”

Head to Rolling Stone to read their story in full.

Pussy Riot Member Moved To New Prison (#3)

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Yesterday, Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s family told the press that she had disappeared. Today the Russian prison service told Interfax news agency that Tolokonnikova has been moved to another prison. This is the third prison that the Pussy Riot member has been in.

The Federal Penitentiary Service also said that Tolokonnikova’s family would be notified within ten days of her arrival at the new prison, per “regulations.”

For more on this story, head to The Guardian.

For the back story. do a search for Pussy Riot on this blog and you can check out my many previous posts.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Is Now In Alatyr Prison Camp

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was moved over the past weekend to a new detention camp in Alatyr in the Russian republic of Chuvashia, her husband said via Twitter today (Wednesday, October 23, 2013), RIA Novosti reported.

Tolokonnikova’s husband Pyotr Verzilov said his wife is now in Penal Colony No. 2 in the town of Alatyr.

Alatyr is about 500 miles east of Moscow.

More of the story.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Moved To Different Prison

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been moved from Penal Colony No. 14 to another prison, and her defense has no info on which prison she is now incarcerated in, her lawyer Irina Khrunova told RAPSI legal news agency Monday (October 21, 2013).

“Nadya is no longer in the prison colony,” Khrunova told RAPSI. “Investigative procedures were planned for today. I arrived, and the investigator told me that Tolokonnikova was not there; I was in shock. He was told that she has been transferred, but where to, we don’t know.”

In a letter dated Friday, October 18, 2013, before she was moved to her current location, Tolokonnikova said she feared for her life in Penal Colony No. 14, Agence France-Presse reported.

“I confess — yes, I am afraid for my life,” Tolokonnikova wrote in a letter she gave to her former defence lawyer Violetta Volkova. “Because I don’t know what will happen to me tonight. What the butchers of the Mordovia prison service will decide to do to me.”

Scans of the letter were published by the New Times opposition magazine, according to Agence France-Presse.

Volkova visited the Pussy Riot member this past Friday morning (Oct. 18, 2013) when she was on a new hunger strike, and Volkova described her as seriously ill.

“It’s not just that she is not in a condition to hunger strike; she is killing herself with it,” Volkova said. “If you met Nadya on the street now, you would probably never recognise her.”

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova To Be Transferred To A Different Prison

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova  will be transferred to another Russian penal colony in the wake of her nine-day hunger strike and the ensuing media attention, the Associated Press report today (October 18, 2013).

“The Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement Friday it will meet Tolokonnikova’s demand and move her to another prison ‘for her personal safety,'” the AP report.

The Pussy Riot member has been suriving a two-year sentence in Penal Colony No. 14 in the Mordovia region of Russia.

For more of this story.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Fights For Prisoners’ Rights In Mordovia

Photo by Denis Bochkarev.
Photo by Denis Bochkarev.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is fronting a new organization, “Mordovlag” (an abbreviation of “Mordovia Camp” in Russian), which will fights for prisoners’ rights in the Mordovia region of Russia, according to Rolling Stone.

Tolokonnikova is currently serving a two year sentence at Penal Colony Bo, 14 in Mordovia.

Mordovlag “will employ experienced lawyers and activists to inspect the region’s prisons, visit prisoners and assist in legal appeals and other procedural issues,” writes Patrick Reevell in Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone also reports: “In the meantime, Tolokonnikova’s move into prison advocacy appears to have already had an effect: Last week, the prison service announced that it would reduce the number of hours worked by inmates and raise their rate of pay. Her hunger strike, and the open letter she released at its outset, have brought public scrutiny onto the camps not seen in decades.”

Read more here.

Meanwhile another member of Pussy Riot, Ekaterina Samutsevich has joined calls for a boycott of next year’s  Sochi Winter Olympic games to protest the country’s recent legislation against gays and lesbians.

“I do not think there is any other way to make our authorities see and understand…,”  Samutsevich told a BBC reporter. “These rights are laid down in UN documents and sadly Russia violates them.”

Read more here.

This is the latest in a series of posts I’ve been doing on Pussy Riot and Tolokonnikova’s situation. To read them all, simply use the search window and search for Pussy Riot.

Imprisoned Pussy Riot Members Could Be Free Soon

Berezniki No. 28, the prison colony in the Perm region where Maria Alyokhina is doing time.
Berezniki No. 28, the prison colony in the Perm region where Maria Alyokhina is doing time.

The Presidential Council for Human Rights, Russian’s top human rights group, on Friday (Oct. 11, 2013) approved a draft ‘broad amnesty’ at the request of President Vladimir Putin, and various members of the council have suggested that the bill could cover the most high profile criminal cases in the country including the two imprisoned members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, according to RT, an international multilingual Russian-based television network.

The head of the council, Mikhail Fedotov, told reporters the amnesty will include convicted women who have underage children, RT reports. According to HR activists the broad amnesty could mean freedom for about a quarter of all Russian prisoners.

President Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that all reports on the amnesty would be considered by the presidential administration as soon as they are submitted, RT reports. The Presidential Council for Human Rights is expected to submit their proposal to President Putin’s office on Monday (Oct. 14, 2013).

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is currently serving a two year sentence at Penal Colony No. 14 in the region of Mordovia. Maria Alyokhina is serving her sentence in the Berezniki prison colony in the Perm region. Perm and Mordovia are in the freezing central region of Siberia. Both women are due to be released in March of 2014, unless the amnesty frees them sooner.

For more of the story, go here and here.