Pussy Riot pair separated and sent to gulags

Two members of Russian rock band Pussy Riot who were each sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism have been sent to separate labour camps, it was reported today.

Defence lawyers said Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been sent to Mordovia and Maria Alyokhina to Perm, part of a “Gulag archipelago” on the edges of European Russia. One supporter of the band tweeted: “Of all the possible options, these are the cruellest prison camps.”

The women were convicted in August after performing a “punk anthem” against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral in February.

Relatives discovered their fate when parcels sent to the Moscow detention centre where they were held during their trial were returned. Perm, in the Ural mountains, has winters as cold as -50C. Mordovia, on the River Volga, is infested with mosquitoes in summer.

The two women, who claim they are victims of a crackdown on freedom of speech, were refused their request to be jailed near Moscow to be close to their families. Both have young children, now in the care of relatives.

In jail, the women’s days will start with compulsory exercise, then eight hours’ work in a sewing factory. Four conjugal visits are allowed a year.

The third member of Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich, got a suspended sentence.