Story highlights
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was jailed in Russia last year for her part in a "punk prayer"
In September, the Pussy Riot band member went on hunger strike over prison conditions
In October, she was transferred and her family was not informed of her new location
Her husband said Friday that he had spoken to her at a Siberian prison where she is now held
Russian authorities have revealed the whereabouts of a convicted Pussy Riot punk rock band member, three weeks after she was moved from a prison where she went on hunger strike over its conditions.
On November 2, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, said his wife had not been heard from since she was transferred from a prison in Mordovia, more than 300 miles east of Moscow on October 24 or 25.
Under law, authorities had to inform her family about her transfer within 10 days of her arrival at a different penal colony.
On Thursday, Russia’s prison service confirmed that Tolokonnikova, 24, had been moved to a prison in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia and that her relatives had been informed.
Verzilov told CNN Friday that he had spoken to his wife, who was being examined in a hospital after her transfer. Tolokonnikova felt OK and was happy with staff at the hospital, he said.
He was in Krasnoyarsk and hoped to see her at the beginning of next week.
Tolokonnikova was sent to Mordovia last year for her part in a performance of a “punk prayer” critical of Vladimir Putin, who was then Russia’s Prime Minister and is now the country’s President. The performance was held at a Russian Orthodox cathedral.
Found guilty of “hooliganism,” the musician was sentenced to two years in a penal colony.
With less than six months left on her sentence, she began a hunger strike on September 23, declaring the conditions at the Mordovia prison to be intolerable.
