Russian Pussy Riot singer Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has vanished in jail. Her father is convinced she has disappeared into the gulag transfer system.
Pussy Riot members were jailed after arrested after playing a provocative punk song in a Russian cathedral in 2012.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was last seen on October 21.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova released a statement on Monday September 23rd on her decision to begin a hunger strike. (Liberty Beat)
The LA Times reported:
A jailed member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot has gone missing in the country’s prison system, her family says.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, known commonly as Nadya, was scheduled to be transferred from a prison in the Republic of Mordovia on Oct. 21, after embarking on a hunger strike to protest conditions there. But she has not been heard from since, her family said, nor has any information been forthcoming from government officials.
“There’s no proof she’s alive,” Andrei Tolokonnikov, Nadya’s father, told the website Buzzfeed. “We don’t know the state of her health. Is she sick? Has she been beaten?”
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Nadya’s husband, Petya Verzilov, told Buzzfeed that he believed she may have been moved to a jail in a big city to discourage anti-government rallies; the Mordovia location had become a magnet for protesters.
Nadya was last seen by a witness in the mountain city of Chelyabinsk on Oct. 24, Verzilov said, where he believes she was transferred temporarily. Russian law requires that families be notified of an inmate’s new whereabouts within 10 days of the move.
Hat Tip Rachel