BEREZNIKI, May 22 (RAPSI) - Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina has declared a hunger strike after a regional court denied her access to her parole appeal hearing. 
 
 Alyokhina, who was taking part in the proceedings at the Berezniki City Court in the Perm Territory via a videoconference facility at her prison, refused to continue taking part and barred her defense team from representing her interests, after being denied transportation to the courthouse. 
 
 A Moscow court sentenced Alyokhina and two other Pussy Riot members - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich - to two years in prison in August 2012 for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, for performing a "punk-prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow in February 2012. 
 
 An edited video of their performance was posted on the Internet and caused an outcry among Orthodox Church followers. 
 
 In October 2012, the Moscow City Court changed Samutsevich's sentence to a suspended term and released her immediately, based on her new attorneys' arguments that she was seized by security guards prior to reaching the altar and was therefore prevented from carrying out the offense. 
 
 Alyokhina's and Tolokonnikova's sentences were upheld. 
 
 In April, the Zubova Polyana District Court in Russia's republic of Mordovia rejected Tolokonnikova's request for parole. ||||| A jailed member of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot has begun a hunger strike to protest at a court decision to refuse her permission to attend her own parole hearing. 
 
 Maria Alyokhina, 24, also forbade her lawyers from further representing her during the parole hearing, becoming the most high-profile prisoner to reject taking part in a justice system widely criticised as absurd. 
 
 A regional court in Berezniki, a small city in the Urals region of Perm where Alyokhina's prison colony is situated, had denied the activist the right to appear at her parole hearing on Wednesday. She appeared via videolink, and was required to file all motions by fax, requiring regular breaks in the hearing. 
 
 At the end of the day-long hearing, she announced she would start a hunger strike. The parole hearing was due to continue on Thursday. 
 
 "Let the troika sitting here – the judge, the prosecutor and the colony employee – decide my fate," Alyokhina said at the close of Wednesday's proceedings, referring to the Soviet-era three-person commissions that issued sentences to perceived enemies without a trial. 
 
 Alyokhina and two of her bandmates, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were sentenced to two years in prison last year after being found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for performing a punk anthem criticising Vladimir Putin inside a Moscow cathedral. 
 
 Samutsevich's sentence was later suspended. Tolokonnikova was denied parole last month. She and Alyokhina are due to be released in March next year. 
 
 In a recent letter to Radio Svoboda, Alyokhina wrote: "Soon I'll appear before the parole commission which, of course, will decide that it's impossible to let such a dangerous person as myself out into society. This is all boring and predictable." 
 
 The case against Pussy Riot signalled the start of a widespread crackdown on the anti-Putin opposition, and boosted the profile of the powerful Russian Orthodox church. 
 
 On Tuesday, the Duma approved a bill that would impose jail terms for "offending religious feelings". It must now pass a formal third reading and be signed into law by Putin. Critics fear it will add to the arsenal of new laws being used to crack down on dissent.
– One of the still-jailed members of Pussy Riot has declared a hunger strike, RIA Novosti reports, after a Russian court denied Maria Alyokhina access to her own parole appeal. She had been participating via video, but when denied transportation to the courthouse, she refused to keep participating and prohibited her defense team from continuing to represent her. The Guardian reports that Alyokhina had been required to fax in all her motions, which meant the hearing was regularly paused. She made her hunger strike declaration at the end of today's hearing; proceedings are scheduled to continue tomorrow. "Let the troika sitting here—the judge, the prosecutor, and the colony employee—decide my fate," she said. Alyokhina was sentenced to two years in prison last year for the punk band's performance of an anti-Putin song; two other band members were also sentenced, but one has since been released.