Tag Archives: Pussy Riot

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova Has Vanished

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Nadezhda_Tolokonnikova_(Pussy_Riot)_at_the_Moscow_Tagansky_District_Court_-_Denis_Bochkarev

After being moved to Penal Colony No. 2 in the town of Alatyr, in the Russian republic of Chuvashia, ten days ago, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova was apparently moved to an undisclosed location, members of Tolokonnikova’s family said today (Friday, Nov. 1, 2013).

“No one knows anything,” her father, Andrei Tolokonnikov, told Buzzfeed in a phone interview from Moscow. “There’s no proof she’s alive, we don’t know the state of her health. Is she sick? Has she been beaten?”

Tolokonikov’s husband Petya Verzilov said isolating his wife was a way for Russian authorities to punish her for speaking out.

“They want to cut her off from the outside world,” Verzilov said. “This is basically the only way they have to punish Nadya — ‘let’s cut her off from the outside world.’”

For more of the story, head to Buzzfeed.

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

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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

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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

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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.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: “If you think I will go back on [my] views you are horribly mistaken”

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Pussy Riot’s  Nadezhda Tolokonnikova says Russian authorities imposed an “information blockade” on her, according to a report in the Guardian.

For the past two weeks the Pussy Riot member, who is at a Russian prison, has not been able to see lawyers or her relatives, the Guardian reports.

“I want to make a declaration to everyone who has a role in making the decision to put me in isolation,” Tolokonnikova wrote in a statement seen by the Guardian. “If you think that without contact with my friends I will become amenable and open to compromise, and go back on the views I have formed about Mordovia’s camps during my time in jail, then you are horribly mistaken.”

Tolokonnikova is currently serving a two-year sentence at Penal Colony No. 14 in the region of Mordovia.

Tolokonnikova’s husband, Petya Verzilov, told the Guardian today (Friday, Oct. 11, 2013) that she has recovered from the medical complications brought about by her hunger strike.

“She’s OK now,” Verzilov told the Guardian. “She has been moved from confinement to the more general prison hospital area, where she is with other inmates. The lawyer was finally able to see her yesterday.”

For the full story go to the Guardian.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova In Serious Condition

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Imprisoned Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is in serious condition following her nine day hunger strike, according to her husband, Pyotr Verzilov.

“Nadya’s condition, no joke, is now very serious,” Verzilov wrote on Twitter late Thursday.

He urged Tolokonnikova’s supporters to protest outside the prison, Penal Colony No. 14, in the Mordovia republic, The Moscow Times reported.

“Therefore, come to Zubova Polyana to rescue her. There are means to live and fight here.”

According to an Oct. 3, 2013 report at Rolling Stone, Russian parliamentary deputy Ilya Ponomarev said doctors feared for the Pussy Riot member’s life. Ponomarev met with Tolokonnikova on Tuesday of this week.

“She was extremely weak and she had a bad infection, which was very visible – she had a bad rash on her skin,” Ponomarev told Rolling Stone.

“She was very bad,” he said. “They were saying that unrecoverable damage was approaching, and I think they were right.”

Tolokonnikova said in a statement that she is suspending, not ending, her hunger strike because Russian authorities promised to move her to another prison.

“I am not ending my hunger strike, I am suspending it temporarily because my physical condition is now very bad and there are the beginnings of health complications,” read a message from Tolokonnikova that was distributed by her husband.

For more, go to Rolling Stone.-

And check out the story in The Moscow Times.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Put On IV Drip

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, on the eighth day of her hunger strike, has been put on an IV dip and Russian officials say they will force-feed her with glucose via the drip if necessary, according to Agence France-Presse. Today is the eighth day of Tolokonnikova’s hunger strike protesting what she calls “slavery-like conditions” at the Russian prison camp Penal Colony No. 14 where she is serving a two year sentence.

For more on this story, go to the news report.
Agence France-Presse report.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Moved To Prison Hospital

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Five days into her hunger strike, Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who is serving a two-year sentence at the Russian prison camp, Penal Colony No. 14, was today (Friday, Sept. 27, 2013) transferred to the penitentiary’s hospital, according to her husband, Pyotr Versilov, who posted the news on Twitter.

Versilov said a prison doctor had described his wife’s condition as “terrible,” according to Agence France-Presse.

“Nadya is now in hospital, but they’re refusing to provide documents about that, or to meet the defence [team], he said. “A blockade has begun.”

Tolokonnikova’s lawyer, Dmitry Dinze was quoted in Russian media as saying she is very weak with low blood pressure and low blood sugar.

In an open letter made public at the beginning of this week, Tolokonnikova said she was going on a hunger strike to protest what she described as “slavery-like conditions” at the camp including “16 or 17 hour” work days.

On Wednesday, two days after she started her hunger strike,  Tolokonnikova was put in solitary confinement.

“The prison administration claimed that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had been placed in isolation for her own protection, but we are concerned this could be yet another punishment for demanding that her own rights and the rights of other inmates are respected,” Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International’s office in Moscow, said in a statement on the Amnesty website. ”What authorities should do is investigate the allegations she made.”

On Thursday Tolokonnikova alleged that she was being denied drinking water and that a guard had grabbed her arms and shoulders. She said it was the first use of physical force against her at the work camp.

Prison officials refute Tolokonnikova’s allegations. They also deny that there is anything unusual or abusive about conditions at the camp.

Tolokonnikova has been serving a two-year sentence since August of 2012 after being convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” She is due for release in March 2014.

For more on this story go to the Huffington Post.