Pussy Riot band member Maria Alyokhina has dropped her plea for an early release to support her bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. Both are currently serving two-year sentences for singing a protest song against Vladimir Putin in a Russian cathedral. Alyokhina explained the dropping of her pleas by saying:
"I have no moral right to take part in this court hearing at a time when my friend and fellow convict Nadezhda Tolokonnikova does not have such an opportunity.
"It is extremely strange and disgusting to me that a convict in Russia is no more than the profit-making property of the authorities. I declare my protest against this, and I declare this protest from the inside, from this pit they are pushing us all into."
Tolokonnikova was taken to hospital in September after a nine-day hunger strike to protest the "slave labor" she was experiencing at the Corrective Colony No. 14 where she is serving her sentence. Tolokonnikova's husband has said she started a new hunger strike on Friday after she was transferred back to prison late Thursday evening.
Tolokonnikova has claimed in a letter written from prison that she has received death threats from a senior prison official and that she and the other inmates must work up to 17 hours a day. Tolokonnikova's accusations have been dismissed by the prison authorities, although investigators are looking into her allegations.
The court has accepted Alyokhina's withdrawal of her appeal.