Jailed Pussy Riot Member Settles Into New Prison Conditions

After her family reported that she was missing and they had no idea where she had gone, jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova turned up in a penal camp in Siberia, which seemed like a bad omen. But on Wednesday night’s Al Jazeera program Consider This, host Antonio Mora spoke with her husband Pyotr Verzilov, who actually went to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia to see her and reports that things are looking up.

Verzilov and the rest of Tolokonnikova’s family did not know where she was for 26 days. “Obviously this super long prison transfer proces was basically the only way the government could somehow put some isolation on her case and will not allow her lawyers and her family to keep constant communication with her,” he told Al Jazeera.

Verzilov reports that Tolokonnikova’s in good condition and that he’s satisfied with where they’re keeping her – which is actually in a tuberculosis hospital. While Tolokonnikova doesn’t have TB, she’s staying in a separate part of the hospital, where she’s reportedly being treated for multiple symptoms that can be attributed to her first hunger strike and original arrest.

While at first Verzilov and the rest of her family believed Tolokonnikova had been transferred to Siberia as punishment for her hunger strike, Verzilov now believes that the improved conditions of her confinement indicate that the Russian government “had the desire to end this huge international scandal.”

Exclusive: Jailed Pussy Riot member visited by husband in prison hospital[Al Jazeera]