Two jailed members of the Pussy Riot protest group in Russia have begun a hunger strike at the prison near Moscow where they are currently serving sentences for online posts they made several years ago, Russian media said.
Maria Alyokhina and Lyusya Shtein are demanding that they be placed in one cell and allowed to communicate with each other, the activists’ lawyer was quoted as saying on December 25.
The Tver district court in Moscow sentenced the two activists on December 17 -- Alyokhina to 15 days in jail and Shtein to 14 days -- after finding them guilty of propagating Nazi symbols online. The two women had been detained a day earlier.
The charge against Alyokhina stemmed from a picture she posted on a social network six years ago of Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka with Nazi swastikas on it, comparing him with "fascists."
Shtein, who is also a Moscow municipal lawmaker, was sentenced over a caricature showing her in a hat with swastika on it that was posted on a social network in 2018.
Lyusya Shtein (file photo)
Alyokhina, Shtein, and other members of the protest group have been sentenced to up 15 days in jail several times in recent months over taking part in protest actions and unsanctioned rallies.
Alyokhina and two other members of Pussy Riot came to prominence after they were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for a stunt in which they burst into Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral and sang a "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister and campaigning for his return to the presidency at the time.
Alyokhina and bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were close to the end of their two-year prison sentences when they were freed in December 2013 under an amnesty, which they dismissed as a propaganda stunt to improve Putin's image ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.