Jailed Pussy Riot Member Hospitalized

A jailed member of the Pussy Riot feminist punk band has been hospitalized after complaining of headaches and of suffering from overwork at a prison colony known for its tough conditions, a fellow band member said today. An official confirmed that Nadezhda Tolonnikova, who is serving a two-year sentence for an irreverent protest against Vladimir Putin, is in a hospital at her prison colony in Mordovia in western Russia. A prison spokeswoman declined to specify her illness, saying only it was "nothing serious."

Bandmate Yekaterina Samutsevich didn't say why Tolokonnikova was hospitalized, but she added that during their trial she said she was suffering from headaches and the judge ignored it. Samutsevich said that Tolokonnikova feels exhausted after working long hours with little sleep. "They don't allow her to have any rest; she works nearly round the clock," Samutsevich told independent Rain TV. Tolokonnikova works at a sewing machine like most female prisoners in Russia's prison colonies; she told an independent paper that she can now meet her quota of making lining for 320 jackets a day. (More Pussy Riot stories.)