Pussy Riot Member Goes On Hunger Strike

Punk band Pussy Riot member Maria Aloykhina has gone on a hunger strike, after receiving word that her request to attend her own parole hearing was denied, according to the Guardian.

Alyokhina also barred her lawyers from any more representation on her part during the course of the parole hearing.

Alyokhina is current imprisoned in a small city of the Urals region of Perm. A court in Berezniki did not allow the activist the right to be present at her parole hearing,

By the end of Wednesday's day-long hearing, Maria, also known as "Masha" declared she was going on a hunger strike, in lieu of the injustices.

"Let the troika sitting here-the judge, the prosecutor and the colony employee-decide my fate," she said, appearing via video. She was referring to the Soviet-era three-person bench that hands out sentences to perceived enemies of the state without trial.

Alyokhina is now one of the most high-profile prisoners in the Russian judicial system to publicly stand against a justice system that many say is backwards and outdated.

In a letter to Radio Svoboda Alyokhina recently wrote, she called her imminent court date, "boring and predicatble. The parole commission...will decide that it's impossible to let such a dangerous person as myself out into society."

The 24-year-old Russian feminist band member, along with another girl in the group, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were arrested in March for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, after five band members performed at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They named their demonstration, "Punk Prayer-Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!" and made it into a music video.

They later said that the protest was meant to convey a message to the leader of the Orthodox Church, who had voiced his support for Putin during the president's election campaign.

After Pussy Riot's widely discussed case, government officials began coming down hard on the anti-Putin movement.

Alyokhina's parole hearing will continue on Thursday.