Jailed Pussy Riot Member To Remain In Krasnoyarsk Hospital

Feminist punk-rock band Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (right) reads a document during a court session in court in the town of Zubova Polyana, southeast from Moscow, in April.

Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova will remain in a hospital in the penitentiary system in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk until her prison term ends in March.

A spokeswoman of the Russian state agency supervising penitentiaries, Yekaterina Brotsman, told reporters in Krasnoyarsk on December 16 that Tolokonnikova had expressed her willingness to stay in the prison hospital.

Tolokonnikova was transferred to Krasnoyarsk last month after going on a hunger strike to protest conditions and alleged death threats by officials at a prison colony in Russia's Republic of Mordovia.

Tolokonnikova and fellow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina are serving two-year sentences after being convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

They were arrested in 2012 after a performance in a Moscow cathedral that criticized President Vladimir Putin.

Based on reporting by Interfax and ITAR-TASS