Imprisoned Pussy Riot member hospitalized
In this video grab made in December, 2012, and provided by APTN Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, an imprisoned member of the Pussy Riot feminist punk band, is seen in prison uniform at a prison colony in the province of Mordovia in western Russia, where she talked to the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta while serving her two-year sentence. The imprisoned members of the Pussy Riot feminist punk band say they feel no regrets about the irreverent “punk prayer” against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral that landed them behind bars for two years. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina offered a vivid, but stoic, description of their harsh prison conditions in interviews published Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013, in the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper. They said they don’t expect clemency from authorities. The sign in the middle of the frame is Novaya Gazeta. (AP Photo/Novaya Gazeta)
MOSCOW— Russia’s prison service says one of two members of the Pussy Riot feminist punk band serving two-year sentences for an irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral has been hospitalized.
Federal Prison Service spokeswoman Kristina Belousova said Friday that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is in a prison hospital in the province of Mordovia in western Russia, the site of her prison colony. Belousova refused to specify Tolokonnikova’s illness or comment on her condition, saying only that she has “nothing serious.”
Yekaterina Samutsevich, a band member who also was sentenced to two years in August but later released on appeal, says Tolokonnikova was suffering from headaches. Samutsevich said on Rain TV that Tolokonnikova also says she feels tired after working long hours with little rest.
