Pussy Riot women sent to prison camps

Moscow - The two convicted women from Pussy Riot have been sent to two prison camps east of Moscow. The camps are hundreds of miles away from their family and supporters.

The two women of the punk band Pussy Riot (Пусси Райот), Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, have been moved to two separate prison camps: Perm and Mordovia, situated east of Moscow. According to the Daily Telegraph, these areas were used for mass prison colonies in the Soviet era. The women were arrested in August following an anti- President Vladimir Putin protest where they sang an anti-Kremlin song in a cathedral in February. The charge against them was "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". The women argued in defense that they were protested against the growing crackdown on free speech and political activism in Russia. Pussy Riot are a Russian feminist punk-rock collective based in Moscow. They were founded in August 2011. The group consists of 12 members and the group are known for wearing brightly colored balaclavas and for staging unannounced provocative performances about Russian political life in unusual and unauthorized locations. A third member of the group who was also arrested, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released earlier in October after being given a suspended sentence. The information about the prison transfer was communicated by Pussy Riot supporters via Twitter. Nadya Tolokonnikova has been sent to Mordovia, and Maria Alyokhina to Perm. However, the Russian authorities have not confirmed the women's transfer. If the transfer has taken place then the camps are located some distance from Moscow and the women will be detained some distance away from their families. Both are married and Alyokhina has a five-year-old son, Filipp, and Tolokonnikova has a four-year-old daughter, called Gera.