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Pussy Riot member 'missing' since transfer to new prison

Gulan Media November 4, 2013 News
Pussy Riot member 'missing' since transfer to new prison
Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been "missing" since being transferred to a new prison in Russia, her family says.

Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed the transfer and said Tolokonnikova's family would be notified within 10 days of her arrival per regulations.

But those 10 days are up, and Tolokonnikova's husband said they still don't know where she is.

Tolokonnikova, 24, was on a hunger strike at a prison in Moldovia and had been hospitalized.

She is serving two years in prison following Pussy Riot's performance protesting Vladmir Putin in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral in 2012.

Another band member, Maria Alyokhina, was also jailed while the third has been released on appeal.

Tolokonnikova has complained of abuses by the prison staff in Mordovia and demanded a transfer. Prison officials granted her request in mid-October, and her family had called it "a victory" at the time, but now they're worried.

Her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told Buzzfeed he believes she's being punished for her protests.

"They want to cut her off from the outside world," he said.

Verzilov said he last knew of his wife's whereabouts on Oct. 24.

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