Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is fronting a new organization, “Mordovlag” (an abbreviation of “Mordovia Camp” in Russian), which will fights for prisoners’ rights in the Mordovia region of Russia, according to Rolling Stone.
Tolokonnikova is currently serving a two year sentence at Penal Colony Bo, 14 in Mordovia.
Mordovlag “will employ experienced lawyers and activists to inspect the region’s prisons, visit prisoners and assist in legal appeals and other procedural issues,” writes Patrick Reevell in Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone also reports: “In the meantime, Tolokonnikova’s move into prison advocacy appears to have already had an effect: Last week, the prison service announced that it would reduce the number of hours worked by inmates and raise their rate of pay. Her hunger strike, and the open letter she released at its outset, have brought public scrutiny onto the camps not seen in decades.”
Read more here.
Meanwhile another member of Pussy Riot, Ekaterina Samutsevich has joined calls for a boycott of next year’s Sochi Winter Olympic games to protest the country’s recent legislation against gays and lesbians.
“I do not think there is any other way to make our authorities see and understand…,” Samutsevich told a BBC reporter. “These rights are laid down in UN documents and sadly Russia violates them.”
Read more here.
This is the latest in a series of posts I’ve been doing on Pussy Riot and Tolokonnikova’s situation. To read them all, simply use the search window and search for Pussy Riot.
