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Tolokonnikova Transferred to Chuvashia, Husband Says

Convicted Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been moved from the penal colony in Mordovia where she was serving her sentence to a prison in the republic of Chuvashia, her husband said Wednesday.

Tolokonnikova's husband Pyotr Verzilov said on his Twitter account that she was being taken to a penal colony in Alatyr, a town 600 kilometers east of the capital.

Federal Penitentiary Service officials would not confirm Tolokonnikova's exact location but told the activist's lawyer Irina Khrunova that she had been transferred outside the republic of Mordovia, legal news agency RAPSI reported.

Prison authorities decided to transfer Tolokonnikova after she resumed a hunger strike that had earlier led to her being hospitalized.

Tolokonnikova first went on a hunger strike in September, protesting the poor conditions at the facility and asking for a criminal case to be initiated against the prison's deputy warden for reportedly threatening to kill her.

The activist is serving a two-year sentence for her involvement in a punk prayer at Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral last year that saw three band members convicted on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

Material from RIA Novosti has been included in this report.

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