Jailed Pussy Riot member complains of "death threats" - Yahoo! News: MOSCOW (Reuters) - One of two jailed Pussy Riot members said she received death threats and complained of abuse at a prison colony where she is serving a two-year sentence for a punk protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral.
But Maria Alyokhina and fellow group member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said they did not regret the protest, despite describing harsh prison conditions in interviews published on Wednesday by the opposition-leaning Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Alyokhina, 24, who lost an appeal this month to have her sentence deferred to care for her five-year-old son, said she was transferred to solitary confinement in November after being threatened by inmates she suspects of acting on the orders of prison officials.
"(They said) if you stay in this unit - that's the end of you... Human rights are grossly violated here," said Alyokhina, who is being held at a penal colony in the Urals Mountains region of Perm.
The members of Pussy Riot were jailed because they did a street performance in front of a church. Specifically, they were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred." Cries of "blasphemy!" followed and so, in an ironic act, those offended Christians behaved decidedly un-Christian like -- and more Taliban-like - participated in the sentencing of Pussy Riot members.
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