Pussy Riot convict 'transferred to Siberia'
Jailed Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is on her way to a new penal colony in Siberia, her husband said Tuesday, following fears after two weeks without information about her whereabouts. ● Tolokonnikova, 23, who alleged major prison abuses in her previous colony in central Russia, is on her way to a new prison colony deep in the Krasnoyarsk region, her husband Pyotr Verzilov wrote on Twitter, saying the information comes from a reliable source. The penal colony number 50 in the town of Nizhny Ingash lies about 300 kilometres (185 miles) from the regional centre Krasnoyarsk, four time zones away from Moscow and sitting on Russia's Trans-Siberian railway. "Essentially, she is transferred 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) from central Russia to the heart of Siberia as punishment for the resonance of her letter" that alleged abuses, Verzilov added. With just months left of her two-year term for performing a "punk prayer" in Russia's main Orthodox cathedral protesting ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin, Tolokonnikova had demanded to be transferred from her prior colony in Mordovia region. She went on a hunger strike in protest of conditions she described as "slave labour" and constant harassment by colony administration. The strike ended when she started having health problems and was placed on a drip in the prison hospital. Verzilov then said he had lost sight of his wife after October 22, and complained that his queries to Russia's prison service as to her whereabouts only received a response that she was being transferred.