Pussy Riot members sent to brutal prison camp, says lawyer

GlobalPost

A lawyer for the two jailed members of Pussy Riot said Monday that Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were transferred to a remote prison camp.

Pussy Riot lawyer Violetta Volkova "was told by phone in the SIZO [special prison] that the girls had been transported," another of the band's lawyers, Mark Feigin, was quoted as saying, according to the BBC.

No official has confirmed or denied the transfer of the two band members.

According to the Guardian:

"Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women's prison camp in Perm, a Siberian region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union's harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons."

More from GlobalPost: Pussy Riot appeal: Yekaterina Samutsevich freed, 2 others still in jail

Yekaterina Samutsevich was also arrested, tried and convicted with the other members, but she was released earlier this month on a suspended sentence.

The three women were arrested for performing an anti-Putin punk prayer in a Moscow church in February and convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

A Pussy Riot Twitter handle, @pussy_riot, tweeted earlier today (translation by Google): "This is the most brutal camps of all possible options."

Sign up for our daily newsletter

Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.