Maria Alyokhina, a member of Russian punk collective Pussy Riot jailed for blasphemy, has been admitted to hospital a week into a hunger strike.
Alyokhina began her hunger strike after she wasn't allowed attend her own parole hearing last week. The BBC reported that Alyokhina's parole request was turned down because she had "systematically disobeyed prison authorities and failed to repent for her crime."
Alyokhina's mother told a local radio station that the court's decision was likely already made before the hearing. "This looked not like a court hearing but like an arm-twisting. Clearly the court was not interested in the character of the convict, because the decision was likely made in advance."
Two members of Pussy Riot, Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were jailed last August for a period of two years for 'breach of public order motivated by religious hatred' and staging performance which was highly critical of Vladimir Putin in Christ the Saviour Cathedral.
A third member of the band, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on a suspended sentence in October.
