MOSCOW, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the imprisoned members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, is being sent to a prison colony in Siberia, her husband said.
Petya Verzilov, Tolokonnikova's husband, said he has received "100 percent reliable" information his wife is being transferred to a prison in the Krasnoyarsk region, about 2,000 miles from Moscow, RIA Novosti reported Tuesday.
Verzilov said he thinks the transfer is punishment for Tolokonnikova's public statements and to push her as far from the media spotlight as possible.
"They do not have the ability to put on the usual psychological or physical pressure they can use with inmates because of the high profile of the case," he said. "So they have chosen this as the punishment instead."
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Tolokonnikova was moved after going on a hunger strike over conditions in her women's prison camp in the Mordovia region, RIA Novosti said. In an open letter, she described a forced-labor routine that included 17-hour work days and a variety of punishments.
Tolokonnikova, 23, said after she wrote about the conditions, prison officials put her in an "information blockade." On Oct. 21, the prison service said she was being transferred out of the women's prison camp but didn't say where.
Neither Verzilov nor Tolokonnikova's lawyers have had contact with her since, RIA Novosti said.
Russia's human rights ombudsman said Tuesday he was told by Russian prison officials Tolokonnikova is in "satisfactory" health and being transferred to a new prison.
Tolokonnikova and Pussy Riot bandmate Maria Alyokhina are serving two-year sentences for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for a performance in Moscow's main cathedral in February 2012. A third band member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was tried and released on appeal.
