Pussy Riot Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Moved To Siberian Tuberculosis Hospital

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova the jailed member of the art/punk band Pussy Riot has made contact with her husband Pyotr Verzilov for the first time in a month. The political prisoner has been locked up in a hospital in western Siberia in a situation that has mirrored the Chinese decedent artist Ai Weiwei. Mr Verzilov told the BBC that he has spoken to her for the first time since she went missing 26 days ago. He said she was undergoing tests for ‘various conditions’ at the Tuberculosis Hospital No 1 in Krasnoyarsk. But he added that she does not have tuberculosis.

Mr Verzilov reported that the conditions at the Siberian hospital were an improvement over the harsh penal colony in Mordovia, where the artist was incarcerated and that she had not been mistreated in the 26 days since she was missing.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich (the latter released on appeal), were incarcerated in penal colonies for two years and are not eligible for parole until next year.The artists were used to set a political example to others  for protesting against the near dictatorial regime of hardliner President Vladimir Putin.They were convicted of a public order offence motivated by ‘religious hatred’ for their protest/performance of an anti Putin ‘Punk Prayer’ inside Christ The Saviour Cathedral in February of last year.

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