 A jailed member of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot has begun a hunger strike to protest at a court decision to refuse her permission to attend her own parole hearing. Alyokhina, who was taking part in the proceedings at the Berezniki City Court in the Perm Territory via a videoconference facility at her prison, refused to continue taking part and barred her defense team from representing her interests, after being denied transportation to the courthouse. A Moscow court sentenced Alyokhina and two other Pussy Riot members - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich - to two years in prison in August 2012 for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, for performing a "punk-prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow in February 2012. In October 2012, the Moscow City Court changed Samutsevich's sentence to a suspended term and released her immediately, based on her new attorneys' arguments that she was seized by security guards prior to reaching the altar and was therefore prevented from carrying out the offense.
– One of the still-jailed members of Pussy Riot has declared a hunger strike, RIA Novosti reports, after a Russian court denied Maria Alyokhina access to her own parole appeal. She had been participating via video, but when denied transportation to the courthouse, she refused to keep participating and prohibited her defense team from continuing to represent her. The Guardian reports that Alyokhina had been required to fax in all her motions, which meant the hearing was regularly paused. She made her hunger strike declaration at the end of today's hearing; proceedings are scheduled to continue tomorrow. "Let the troika sitting here—the judge, the prosecutor, and the colony employee—decide my fate," she said. Alyokhina was sentenced to two years in prison last year for the punk band's performance of an anti-Putin song; two other band members were also sentenced, but one has since been released.