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Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP - Getty Images, file
Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova sit in a glass-walled cage in a Moscow court last October.
MOSCOW — One of two jailed members of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot said she received death threats and complained of abuse at a prison colony where she is serving a two-year sentence for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral.
But Maria Alyokhina and fellow group member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said they did not regret the protest, despite describing harsh prison conditions in interviews published on Wednesday by the opposition-leaning Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Alyokhina, 24, who lost an appeal this month to have her sentence deferred to care for her 5-year-old son, said she was transferred to solitary confinement in November after being threatened by inmates she suspects of acting on the orders of prison officials.
Members of the band Pussy Riot, arrested in February after storming a Moscow cathedral, were sentenced to two years in jail Friday. Critics say the arrest was Putin's personal revenge, raising questions about justice in Russia. NBC's Duncan Golestani reports.
"(They said) if you stay in this unit — that's the end of you. ... Human rights are grossly violated here," said Alyokhina, who is being held at a penal colony in the Ural Mountains region of Perm.
"What is the most difficult thing? Coming to understand how this system works, how it creates a slave mentality," she said. "Ignorance, cowardice, betrayal, denunciation is the norm."
Tolokonnikova, 23, who also has a young child and is jailed in the central Russian region of Mordovia, renowned for its legacy of Soviet-era prison camps, said she has not been a victim of the same pressure as Alyokhina but described pitiless conditions of forced labor.
Like many female inmates in Russia, she works to fulfill quotas for sewing padded winter jackets, earning a salary of less than $12 per month, she said.
Both women, who were inspired by leftist philosophy to form the radical punk performance art group, complained of not having enough access to books in jail.
Three Pussy Riot members — who until their arrest hid their identities and that of other bandmates behind trademark colored balaclavas at impromptu street performances -- were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
One of the three was released on appeal with a suspended sentence but Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are less than halfway through their prison terms, which are counted from their arrests in March 2012.
Three female punk rockers are put on trial in Russia after taking over the pulpit at an Orthodox cathedral and performing a controversial song criticizing President Putin. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Pussy Riot's raucous "punk prayer", the women flashing legs clad in brightly colored tights and brandishing an electric guitar on the altar, was criticized by Putin and cast by the Russian Orthodox Church as part of a concerted attack on the country's main faith.
The two jailed women complained that their message, part of a wave of opposition protests against Putin's decision to return for a third Kremlin term since 2000, has been twisted by Russian media.
"Russian state propaganda presented us as blasphemers, as hooligans and so on, but in reality it was an ironic and funny action, though still a desperate one," Tolokonnikova said.
"It was, so to speak, a political heartfelt cry which was still made in an ironic and funny manner."
Related:
Russian court bans 'extremist' Pussy Riot video from websites
Lawyer: Band members sent to far-flung prisons
Full Russia coverage from NBC News
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The secret word is: Gulag.
Every country neeeds Pussy Riot!
Reality rears its ugly head.
The remaining band members are touring under the name Pussy Minor Disturbance
It does not matter what side you think you are on or what country you live in, you need to base your stance on the most accurate historical information you find. This process requires that when you develop a rational opinion based on such information, you then study opposing views and alternative information because the winners of wars write the history of wars. If you think the people of the United States own the Revolutionary war you are sorely mistaken, the central bank that also financed England won. If may think the US won WWI and WWII, when both sides were financed by the Central Bank that owns the military industrial complex to this day. You may think America won the cold war, guess again. Watch "banking with Hitler" on topdocumentaryfilms(dot)com or on Youtube. It is not easy to find but you can torent download, "Tsar to Lenin". When the Soviet Union fell the international banksters were right there to loan them money and bring Russia under there rule. Stalin was not even a communist, he imprisoned or killed any communist that would not submit to his totalitarian rule. A communist would not defend the church and imprison pussy riot. Putin as well as Obama answer to their Central Bank masters. The only was to overthrow these inbred infintitly greedy overlords and their FIAT money is by establishing a World Wide One Person One Vote form of referendum government.
Coming soon to a country near you.
Very brave women.
I'm not sure I'd have the guts to do what they did.
The group is trash that desecrated a church. They would be hated anywhere and are lucky to be alive . They are kept in the news for an anti-Putin campain by the West's propaganda because Putin will not let the oligarchs from the West to censor his press like they do here in the US .
more violence connected with religion that's just what everybody needs.
Joe-3496279
Churches are social clubs. These girls are Political Prisoners, Not blasphemers.
Ah the Church. Established at the Counsel of Nicaea 325 years after Jesus. Yes Jesus, the Jew God fashioned after, plagerized from a more ancient Sumerian god or two, came down on Mary and layed his magic want into her and impregnated her out of wedlock. Then he split for parts unknown leaving Joseph to have sloppy seconds with Mary and to care for the child he fathered, thus making little baby Jesus a bastard. The dead beat dad never paid any child support. And certain Zionist Jews, chosen by GOD maintain a monopoly of the monetary system of the planet to this very day. Bad Pussy Riot, bad bad girls, bad!
Joe
What century are you from?
Hated? Here they would have been the warm up act for the next band in some of the new "Churches" here.
i was starting to think good of Vladimir Putin but after what he done with this every time i hear about him i have no respect for him any more. he is just a Communist.
Capitalist, Communist, Czarist, nothing has changed in Russia except the name of the system. It's still the same totalitarian government that it always was. Maybe by drawing worldwide attention to it Pussy Riot will bring about change, but I doubt it.
Unlikely to change them. They have really reverted back to some degree since "Gorby" split them up in the 80's. They put them in jail and not sentenced them to death, so I really find it unlikely that another country is going to sabre rattle much for these ladies. Pick your battles, and this battle has no profit in it.
It's Russia, folks. That's just how the government controls dissidents there. Whether it be for complaints about the current dictator or the deplorable condition of the sewers, complaints get you 'sent away' for a few years. If you just happen to 'disappear' while you're gone, nobody at the top really cares. It's the way Russia works. Humans -- except for a handful in the Kremlin -- are expendable.
Apparently being incarcerated and performing forced labor has taught these girls nothing, They say it was still funny lol, keep laughing dummies.
See now you out law religion and all this bull@!$%# goes away. Putin you suck!! little troll