Missing Pussy Rioter In Siberia?

Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, has accused Russia of trying to silence her.

“Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has publicly complained of threats she received from prison officials. We are concerned that she now may be being punished for this and for speaking out about deplorable prison conditions,” he said.

“The Russian authorities must immediately tell her family where she is and allow her access to a lawyer. She is a prisoner of conscience who should have never been taken to jail in the first place. Refusing to say where she is simply fuels rumours of the worst case scenario.

“If reports are true, transferring her to a prison colony thousands of kilometres from Moscow would make it almost impossible for her relatives and lawyers to see her. This would be a violation of her human rights and of Russia’s own laws.”

There have been questions about Tolokonnikova’s whereabouts since Oct. 22, when she was reportedly taken from the penal colony in Mordovia, where she was serving a two-year prison sentence.

A year ago, she did an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, in which she said she regrets nothing about the band’s anti-government performance in a cathedral that got them convicted of hooliganism and sentenced to spend two years behind bars.

She said that her conviction, along with that of her two band mates, were Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “personal revenge” that served to put a global spotlight on his government.

A month after the German magazine article was published, a Moscow appeals court unexpectedly freed fellow Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich, but upheld the sentences against Maria Alekhina and Tolokonnikova.

It is believed Tolokonnikova, who was reportedly on hunger strike and being drip-fed in the prison hospital at Mordovia, has subsequently been transferred to an undisclosed location.

Her husband has said a penitentiary administration source informed him of the possible move to a prison colony in Siberia.

Amnesty has made Tolokonnikova the subject of an urgent action campaign, calling on the authorities in Russia to disclose her location immediately.