Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikov — imprisoned for two years in a Russian prison colony that is reminiscent of “the Soviet gulag system” because she had the audacity to speak out against the Putin regime in an act of “hooliganism” that would have earned her nothing more than a slap on the wrist in civilized countries — is going on a hunger strike to protest against the appalling conditions and forced labour she is experiencing, the Guardian is reporting. The paper also says she has received death threats.

Nadezhda has also written an open letter, which has been translated and published on the Guardian site.

Here’s Pussy Riots’s video, Putin Lights Up the Fires.