'Pussy Riot' member hospitalised in 'terrible state' on fifth day of hunger strike

A member of the punk group 'Pussy Riot', who was serving her jail term at a Russian prison camp, was transferred to the jail's hospital on her fifth day of her hunger strike protesting against long hours of forced labor and threats to her life.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was moved to the prison's medical unit on the recommendation of the doctors, who said her condition was terrible, Huffington Post reports.

The 23-year-old activist's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, said prison guards had deprived her of water in the isolation cell to which she was recently moved.

Tolokonnikova, the mother of a five-year-old girl, is currently serving a two-year sentence in Russia's Mordovia region.

She was convicted of 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred' last year after she and other 'Pussy Riot' members performed a brief punk rock protest in a historic cathedral in Moscow.

Tolokonnikova wrote in a letter that prisoners at Penal Colony No. 14 were made to work 17-hours-a-day stitching police uniforms and even forced to stand outside in the cold or denied food at times, the report added.