Jailed Pussy Riot Member Launches Hunger Strike

A file photograph dated 10 October 2012 shows Russian feminist punk-rock band Pussy Riot members Yekaterina Samutsevich (L), Maria Alyokhina (C) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (R) sitting in a glass-walled cage in a court room before the beginning of a court

A jailed member of Russia’s Pussy Riot group has announced she is going on hunger strike in protest over the authorities' failure to allow her to attend a parole hearing in person.

Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, who was taking part in the proceedings at the Berezniki City Court in the Perm Territory via a videoconference facility at her prison, refused to continue taking part and barred her defense team from representing her interests, after being denied transportation to the courthouse, according to RIA Novosti.

A Moscow court sentenced Alyokhina and two other Pussy Riot members - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich - to two years in prison in August 2012 for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, for performing a "punk-prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow in February 2012.

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