Pussy Riot Member Ends Hunger Strike
Pussy Riot‘s Maria Alyokhina has ended her prison hunger strike after 11 days. The husband of one of Alyokhina’s bandmates said that the demands she made regarding security at the prison colony have been met, the BBC reports.
Alyokhina began the hunger strike on May 22nd in protest against a Russian court’s refusal to allow her to attend her own parole hearing. She also claimed that prison officials were trying to turn the other inmates against her with a security lock-down before the parole hearing. Alyokhina was subsequently denied parole from the prison colony in the Ural mountains where she is serving a two-year sentence for Pussy Riot’s “punk prayer” protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Alyokhina was transferred to a hospital unit in the prison at the end of her first week of the hunger strike. Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, reported that Alyokhina’s health was now satisfactory. He also said that padlocks on the buildings where Alyokhina’s fellow inmates work had been removed. “Maria said that the prison administration took her on a special tour of the colony, to show her that her demands have been met,” he said.