Jailed Pussy Riot member sent to Siberia, husband says

Jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, plans to travel to Siberia after he received a tip that Tolokonnikova, who has not been heard from for more than two weeks, has been transferred to a jail there, he told Al Jazeera Tuesday.

Verzilov, one of the artist-activists behind the dissident punk rock collective, said he obtained the information from "a source close to the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service."

He said the source did not told him which penal colony in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk Krai she was in, but he still plans to embark on a search for his spouse.

"Once we confirm that Nadezhda is there, we will definitely fly to Siberia and help her. We'll meet the administration of the prison," he said.

Tolokonnikova has been out of communication with her family since late October, in what her husband and lawyer told Al Jazeera on Saturday was a protracted prison transfer.

On Saturday, Verzilov reported that penitentiary officials told him that she had been transferred from a prison in the western Russian region of Morodovia but would not release any details on her present location.

"The authorities found a way of cutting her off from the outside world," Verzilov said, saying he believes Moscow is attempting to block international media coverage of Tolokonnikova after she started a widely publicized hunger strike to protest the death threats and slave-labor-like conditions she said she faced in prison.

Verzilov said that on Tuesday, he received word from Russian human-rights officials that his wife "was being transferred and is in good condition."

"Obviously the Russian Penitentiary Service is taking special steps to isolate her," he said. "We see it as a punishment placed on Nadezhda for the high-profile attention she is getting internationally."

Penitentiary Service officials were not immediately available for comment.

Tolokonnikova and two other Pussy Riot members were sentenced to two years in jail after they broke into Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2011 to film a music video for what they called a "punk prayer" criticizing Russian Orthodox Church officials for their support of President Vladimir Putin's election campaign.

"Virgin Mary, mother of God / Chase Putin far from me … The phantom of liberty is in heaven / Gay Pride sent to Siberia in chains / The head of the KGB / Their chief saint / Leads protesters to prison under escort / In order not to offend his holiness / Women must give birth and love … Virgin Mary, mother of God / Become a feminist," they sang and — more often than not — shouted.  

Verzilov told Al Jazeera that despite Tolokonnikova's imprisonment, "we stand 120 percent" by Pussy Riot's endeavors to "put an end to the Putin regime in this country."

International artists, including Madonna and 85-year-old French new-wave film icon Jeanne Moreau, have voiced support for Tolokonnikova and Pussy Riot.

The lawyer who represented Pussy Riot members in their 2012 trial, Nikolai Polozov, told Al Jazeera that Verzilov's bid for his wife's release and, more recently, his decision to release information about her whereabouts is putting Tolokonnikova in greater danger. What Verzilov is doing "is not good, and now what we see is a reaction from the system to their activity," Polozov said.

But Verzilov maintains that international media coverage is shielding Tolokonnikova from harsher retribution for her dissidence.

Al Jazeera