On Thursday, May 23, jailed Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina was denied parole, as well as her friend Nadezhda Tolokonnikova last month. That means that she and Alyokhina are due to be released in early March next year, having been in custody since their arrest in March 2012.

      On Wednesday Alyokhina took part in a parole hearing via video link from her prison in Russia's Perm Region. At the end of the hearing she announced that she would start a hunger strike and boycott further proceedings in protest against not being allowed to attend the hearing. Her lawyers didn't take part in a next hearing on Thursday and officials appointed a state lawyer to represent her. As expected, the final result went against Maria.

      In August 2012, a Moscow court sentenced Alyokhina and two other Pussy Riot members – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – to two years in prison for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after the feminist group performed a brief "punk-prayer" in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow in February 2012. Samutsevich was released on probation last October.