NIZHNY NOVGOROD, October 14 (RIA Novosti) A feminist punk band member jailed last year for her involvement in an anti-government performance in an Orthodox Christian cathedral in Moscow filed a motion Monday for her sentence to be softened.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s effort to reduce the severity of her two-year jail sentence follows a high-profile hunger strike she initiated September in what she said was a protest at the conditions of her custody and alleged threats from prison administration officials.
The date for the hearing on the sentence mitigation appeal submitted to the Zubovo-Polyansky court, in the republic of Mordovia, has not yet been set .
Tolokonnikova and two other Pussy Riot members received a two-year jail sentence in August 2012 after being found guilty of hooliganism for performing a raucous protest song at the Christ the Savior Cathedral against the imminent re-election of Vladimir Putin as president earlier that year.
In August 2012, a court in Moscow downgraded the punishment against Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich to a suspended sentence based on her attorneys' argument that she had been seized by security guards prior to reaching the altar.
