A Member of Pussy Riot Has Been Transferred to Solitary Confinement

Citing “strained relations” with her fellow inmates at a Russian penal colony in Perm, Maria Alyokhina, one of the imprisoned members of Pussy Riot, has asked to be transferred to solitary confinement. Reuters reports that prison officials obliged her, though a spokeswoman for the Russian prison service dismissed rumors that Alyokhina requested her transfer to a single-person cell after getting into religious arguments with other inmates and receiving death threats.

Alyokhina, along with her fellow bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, is serving out the two-year sentence levelled against members of the punk bank for their protest performance inside the Christ Savior Cathedral in Moscow. The transfer requests marks the second time Alyokhina has spoken out against conditions in the penal colony (Alyokhina is a vegan and previously complained about the prison’s meat-based diet).

A third member of Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released from prison on a suspended sentence last month, and has vowed, like any good comrade in punk rock, to keep fighting for the release of her fellow Pussy Rioters.

Report: Pussy Riot member asks for solitary confinement [CNN]

Russian female punk rock band protester alone in cell after inmate tension [Reuters]