Five days into her hunger strike, Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who is serving a two-year sentence at the Russian prison camp, Penal Colony No. 14, was today (Friday, Sept. 27, 2013) transferred to the penitentiary’s hospital, according to her husband, Pyotr Versilov, who posted the news on Twitter.
Versilov said a prison doctor had described his wife’s condition as “terrible,” according to Agence France-Presse.
“Nadya is now in hospital, but they’re refusing to provide documents about that, or to meet the defence [team], he said. “A blockade has begun.”
Tolokonnikova’s lawyer, Dmitry Dinze was quoted in Russian media as saying she is very weak with low blood pressure and low blood sugar.
In an open letter made public at the beginning of this week, Tolokonnikova said she was going on a hunger strike to protest what she described as “slavery-like conditions” at the camp including “16 or 17 hour” work days.
On Wednesday, two days after she started her hunger strike, Tolokonnikova was put in solitary confinement.
“The prison administration claimed that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had been placed in isolation for her own protection, but we are concerned this could be yet another punishment for demanding that her own rights and the rights of other inmates are respected,” Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International’s office in Moscow, said in a statement on the Amnesty website. ”What authorities should do is investigate the allegations she made.”
On Thursday Tolokonnikova alleged that she was being denied drinking water and that a guard had grabbed her arms and shoulders. She said it was the first use of physical force against her at the work camp.
Prison officials refute Tolokonnikova’s allegations. They also deny that there is anything unusual or abusive about conditions at the camp.
Tolokonnikova has been serving a two-year sentence since August of 2012 after being convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” She is due for release in March 2014.
For more on this story go to the Huffington Post.