Google –AFP, 19 October 2013
Jailed
Pussy Riot punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in a single confinement
cell
at her penal colony in the village of Partza on September 25, 2013 (AFP/File,
Ilya Shablinsky)
|
Moscow —
Jailed Pussy Riot punk Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said in a letter released
Saturday that she feared for her life in her penal colony in the Russian region
of Mordovia after resuming a hunger strike.
"I
confess -- yes, I am afraid for my life. Because I don't know what will happen
to me tonight. What the butchers of the Mordovia prison service will decide to
do to me," she said in a letter passed to media by her former defence
lawyer Violetta Volkova.
Her latest
handwritten letter, scans of which were published by the New Times opposition
magazine, is dated Friday.
Volkova
wrote on her blog that she had visited Tolokonnikova at her penal colony on
Friday morning when she was on hunger strike, describing her as seriously ill.
"It's
not just that she is not in a condition to hunger strike; she is killing
herself with it," she said.
"If
you met Nadya on the street now, you would probably never recognise her."
Tolokonnikova
is serving a two-year sentence in the central Russian region for her punk
protest group's performance in a Moscow church criticising President Vladimir
Putin.
The
23-year-old last month went on hunger strike demanding a transfer to another
colony. She released a letter detailing 17-hour days in a sewing workshop and a
veiled death threat from the deputy prison governor.
After eight
days, she was hospitalised and put on a drip.
She resumed
the hunger strike on Friday after returning to her penal colony Number 14 in
the region dotted with former Gulag camps.
On Friday
afternoon, the prison service announced it would transfer Tolokonnikova to
another colony.
Her husband
Pyotr Verzilov wrote on Twitter on Saturday that Tolokonnikova was still on
hunger strike and would continue "until the prison service's decision to
move her is carried out".
Tolokonnikova
and fellow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina are due to be released in March
next year. Both have young children. Each has had two requests for parole
turned down.
Verzilov
accused lawyer Volkova of visiting Tolokonnikova in order to try to persuade
her to tone down her demands and compromise with the prison authorities.
He sent AFP
a letter signed by Tolokonnikova and dated Friday formally refusing Volkova's
services and saying she suspected her of "personal links to the prison
administration".
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