The Russian prison service has announced that a member of the band Pussy Riot has been sent to a new penal colony, after her husband expressed fears that she had disappeared.
The Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s prison service as saying that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had been moved after her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, complained that he no longer knew where she was.
Verzilov told the Buzzfeed website that he believed the decision to move his wife came from the authorities in Moscow: “They want to cut her off from the outside world”.
He said Tolokonnikova was still weak after two hunger strikes, and accused the authorities of trying to punish her because of her protests. He last knew her precise whereabouts on 21 October, when guards put her on a train to a different prison. She was seen on 24 October by a fellow passenger as the train arrived in the city of Chelyabinsk, in the Ural mountains.
The Federal Penitentiary Service said Tolokonnikova was being sent to a new prison and that in accordance with regulations her family would be informed within 10 days of arrival, Interfax said.
Tolokonnikova is serving two years following the band’s politically provocative performance in Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral in 2012. She went on hunger strike to protest against prison conditions in September and was sent to hospital. The prison service said in mid-October that she would be moved to another prison.